Georgi Dimitrov: A Biography 9780755620395, 9781845117283

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Of all the people who showed an interest in this book, I would like to mention first those sceptics who frankly questioned that it was at all necessary: they made me think harder about something I had taken for granted. But mostly, colleagues, friends and family have been supportive and even near-strangers have helped me at critical junctures. They all made my research less lonely and my writing more rewarding, and so it is an even greater pity that not all can be mentioned individually. As the majority of the original sources used are of Bulgarian origin, I would not have been able to go forward without the cooperation of the Director and staff of the Central State Archive in Sofia, and especially those in Reading Room 100 who did their best to accommodate my optimistic and inevitably urgent requests. The Bulgarian National Library was the almost-perfect ‘period’ setting for much of my research where kind and professional librarians didn’t blink an eye at the piles of dusty volumes that passed their desks during each of my visits. There, on countless occasions I have benefited immensely by the generosity and expert advice of Boyka Parvanova. Jordan Baev has shared invaluable insights and encyclopaedic knowledge of personalities and events. Luiza Revyakina, Irina Ognyanova, Lyubomir Ognyanov, Mihail Gruev and Mitko Grigorov have all granted me numerous personal and academic favours. In Britain, Matthew Worley has been a source of wisdom, patience and encouragement, while Nina Fishman and Anita Pražmowska stepped in with muchappreciated feedback and positive criticism. I have been privileged, now as before, with Richard Crampton’s timely and astute advice. The most pleasant hours were spent being regaled with the vivid memories of Dianko and Mimi Sotirovi, who lived through some of the events in the latter part of the book. I also wish now to thank Maria Dowling and Edmund Green, for guiding me onto the path of academia and for much more. I acknowledge with gratitude the financial support of the British Academy for a big part of the research. The final stages of the project were funded by a grant from the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust. My work would be inconceivable without the unreserved moral and practical backing of my parents. Much credit goes to my husband who preserved his calm and sense of humour through all the dramas of writing. But ultimately, it is my children – a fountain of emotions and aspirations – who have made the whole endeavour exciting and worthwhile.

ABBREVIATIONS

BKP BRP(K) BRSDP(B) BRSDP(N) BSDP BZNS CC CCP Cominform CPGB DII ECCI FB FF ITU KKE KPD KPÖ MOPR ORSS PCE PCF PPR POUM PSOE SORSS SPD SPÖ VKP(B) VMRO VO WEB

Bulgarian Communist Party Bulgarian Workers’ Party (Communists) Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party (Broad) Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party (Narrow) Bulgarian Social Democratic Party Bulgarian Agrarian National Union Central Committee Chinese Communist Party Information Bureau of the Communist and Workers’ Parties Communist Party of Great Britain Department of International Information Executive Committee of the Communist International Foreign Bureau Fatherland Front International Trade Union Greek Communist Party German Communist Party Austrian Communist Party International Organisation for Aid of Revolutionaries General Workers’ Trade Union Spanish Communist Party French Communist Party Polish Workers’ Party Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification Spanish Socialists Workers’ Party Free Trade Union Federation German Social Democratic Party Austrian Socialist Party Soviet Communist Party (Bolsheviks) Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation Military Organisation West-European Bureau

SERIES FOREWORD

Communism has, traditionally, appeared to be something of a faceless creed. Its emphasis on the collective over the individual, on discipline and unity, and on the overwhelming importance of ‘the party’, has meant that only the most renowned (and mainly Soviet) communist leaders have attracted interest from English-speaking political historians and biographers. In particular, the party rank-and-file have tended to be dismissed as mere cogs within the organisations of which they were part, either denigrated as ‘slaves of Moscow’, or lost in the sweeping accounts of communist party policy and strategy that have dominated the historiography to date. More recently, however, historians have begun to delve beneath the uniform appearance of democratic centralism, endeavouring to understand the motivations and objectives of those who gave their lives to revolutionary struggle. The current series, therefore, has been established to bolster and give expression to such interest. By producing biographical accounts of communist leaders and members, it is hoped that a movement that helped define the twentieth century will begin to be understood in a more nuanced way, and that the millions who – at various times and in various ways – subscribed to such a Utopian but ultimately flawed vision will be given both the personal and historical depth that their communist lives deserve. Matthew Worley Series Editor – Communist Lives

INTRODUCTION WHY A POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY OF DIMITROV?

Georgi Dimitrov was a dedicated radical Communist for 47 years. It was during the last 15 of these that he became one of the most eminent figures of the international Communist movement in the first half of the twentieth century. Having joined the forerunner of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BKP) in 1902, he soon became one of its leaders, involved in a wide spectrum of activities from launching strikes to parliamentary representation. Dimitrov was one of the militants who played a central role in the staging of a short-lived Communist uprising in September 1923, which ended in disarray and sent him into exile among the ranks of Soviet-sponsored Communist operatives in Europe. Then, a trick of fortune plucked him from a decade of unrewarding underground work when he was arrested in Berlin, in early March 1933, to be accused in connection with the Reichstag Fire, just weeks after Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany. With little to lose, Dimitrov threw himself into an aggressive ideological self-defence, clashing head on with Goering and Goebbels. Helped by Communist-sponsored publicity, he won the sympathy of the international media and inspired a continent-wide protest against the advancing Nazi regime. Only on his acquittal was he granted Soviet citizenship and soon afterwards appointed Secretary-General of the Communist International, the organisation that coordinated the individual Marxist-Leninist parties and bound them to the policies of the first Socialist state. In 1935, Dimitrov proclaimed the policy of the popular front, a veritable turnaround in both Soviet diplomacy and the International’s tactics; for the next four years he personified this attempt on the part of the Communists across Europe and beyond to build a leftist political alliance to counter the advent of the extreme right. This was shattered by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but when the Soviet Union joined the war against Nazi Germany Dimitrov oversaw various resistance movements, directing them on behalf of Stalin to seek even wider national cooperation. After the end of the Second World War, he returned to his native Bulgaria to take the reins of a Communist-dominated government. He followed the political line of the people’s democracy, the controversial transition phase that eased in Communist rule across the Soviet zone of occupation and influence. Revisiting the biography of a renowned Communist appears odd and logical in equal measures. At first sight – 60 years after his death and 20 years after the collapse of the Communist regimes which he helped install – it might seem that everything of interest and consequence has already been revealed through different methods and from different perspectives. This is certainly the impression intended by the extensive bibliography of Communist vintage which claims to trace Dimitrov’s presence in everything from agriculture to art. Besides the self-serving efforts of the regime

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Dimitrov founded, his case is no exception to the principle that only with the passing of time and the subsiding of contemporary passions, as well as the amassing of versatile evidence, can a rational and extensive assessment of historical figures and facts be reached. Indeed, the profound political transformation witnessed across Eastern Europe on the eve of the new millennium altered beyond recognition the overall historical paradigm into which many of the pivotal events in Dimitrov’s life fitted. Dimitrov is predominantly remembered as Stalin’s authorised spokesman on matters of international Communism and as the doyen of Communist statesmen in sovietising Eastern Europe. For this reason, it is often forgotten that he had not always been the uncontested leader of his national party, nor indeed Moscow’s trusted agent. It was after he was welcomed into the Soviet hierarchy in the aftermath of his passionate performance at the Leipzig court that he finally achieved his decades-long ambition of heading the beleaguered Bulgarian Communist Party. At the same moment, Communist propaganda began laying the foundations of the myth of the Leipzig anti-fascist and the wise politician of international stature. 1 Dimitrov’s selfproclaimed Leninist credentials were immediately turned into an instrument for the streamlining of the Bulgarian Communist movement, both inside the country and in exile, and for justifying current policies. They were similarly employed in the process of legitimising the Communist domination of Bulgaria after the Second World War. The Dimitrov legend lay at the very foundation of Communist rule, its pivotal importance reflected in the fact that it was never subjected to any measures of de-Stalinisation or indeed perestroika.2 Communist-sanctioned historiography interpreted not only the evolution of the Communist party but the whole of Bulgarian post-First World War history through the prism of Dimitrov’s heroics. For instance, the abortive uprising he started in September 1923 was presented as an act of forward Bolshevik-style thinking, while a disastrous blast in a Sofia cathedral in April 1925 was downplayed and blamed on irresponsible un-Bolshevik elements among the Communists. Simultaneously, the most ignominious episodes of Dimitrov’s career – such as his significant involvement in the Stalinist terror in the later 1930s – remained taboo subjects. Traumatic personal events, such as the suicide of his first wife, were also shrouded in silence. Altogether, history was woven into ideology to ensure the portrayal of Dimitrov as the benevolent and far-sighted founding father of the new Bulgarian Socialist nation, as well as of the emerging brotherhood of Socialist states. Outside the Communist bloc, the pre-1989 literature on twentieth-century Bulgaria was never abundant, though it did concentrate on modern Bulgarian left-wing politics and thus scrutinised the platform from which Dimitrov operated. In what can be regarded as a classic text, John Bell outlined the evolution of the BKP from its foundation to the period of mature Socialism, thus implicitly examining Dimitrov’s place among the different generations of leaders. On the other hand, Joseph Rothschild’s authoritative narrative astutely conceptualised the early Bulgarian Socialists within the Russian – as opposed to the Central European – radical-leftist tradition, and so defined the longer-term context of Dimitrov’s inter-war political progress.3 To these admirable achievements of their time should be added those of

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Petur Semerdjiev, a former high-level Bulgarian Communist and therefore an author with unrivalled credentials to participate in the polemic; his work prods perceptively into the most popular aspects of the myth of Georgi Dimitrov, for instance the Reichstag Fire Trial and the popular front, finding them contradictory and inconsistent in terms of both substance and detail.4 It can only be lamented that in this and later works on major issues of Communist history, such as the takeover of 9 September 1944, as well as on Russian policy in Bulgaria, Semerdjiev does not directly relate his first-hand experience. His persuasive argument that Dimitrov was central to the subjugation of Bulgarian Communism to Soviet plans stands out among the writings of his contemporary Communists, even those published after 1989. With the fall of the Bulgarian Communists from power, amidst the dismantling of the Soviet bloc, Dimitrov’s persona and politics swiftly became the focus of prolonged and intertwined political and historical controversies.5 A spate of reminiscences and reflections by former greater or lesser Communist dignitaries saw the appearance of cracks in the previous monolithic Communist front. The majority simply sought to justify their own role in the building and maintaining of the dictatorship. Many authors, ranging from guerilla chiefs to personal bodyguards, conveyed undiminished awe for Dimitrov as a politician and man while still presenting him as much more complex and contentious than the hitherto one-dimensional image.6 Among such output, more unpredictable were the somewhat disjointed notes by Vulko Chervenkov, Dimitrov’s brother-in-law and immediate successor in 1949.7 Despite his altogether respectful attitude, he offered a series of unflattering observations, especially in relation to Dimitrov’s behaviour towards his ideological rivals, the so-called ‘left sectarians’, throughout the 1930s. Dimitrov’s private secretary after 1945, Nedelcho Ganchovski, disclosed many of the insecurities and disappointments of the elder statesman – perhaps inadvertently.8 With the liberalisation of academic research and the mass media, a series of publications targeted the glaring gaps and inconsistencies in Dimitrov’s authorised biography, and strove to reassess the received wisdom of past historiography. Because of the sensitive moment at which it appeared and the manifold goals it pursued, much of the new writing was sensationalist and politicised, fittingly appearing in journalistic format. Some revelations were no more than public knowledge, formerly suppressed, about Dimitrov’s private life, especially his attitude to women and drink. Alternatively, extraordinary claims, for instance that Dimitrov should be credited with the cessation of the Allied air-raids over Bulgaria in the spring of 1944 or that he was killed by Tito, were not substantiated even by the text under the most bombastic headlines. 9 And yet, shallow and exaggerated as such exercises mostly were, they did stimulate attention and debate on much more meaningful issues, such as the origins and nature of the domestic Communist movement, the combination of factors that propelled it to power and its relationship with Soviet policy. These issues need to be addressed in a more academic manner in order to prevent the substitution of old for new myths, once again serving particular political preferences. Logically, the burgeoning re-evaluation of the Communist dictatorship should be extended to its historic figureheads, among whom Dimitrov took pride of place.

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Dimitrov’s political legacy, central to recent Bulgarian history, became the underlying focus of somewhat secretive dealings over the release of a key portion of his archive and the fate of his physical remains. For half a century his diary – copies of which were kept in Moscow – had only been used by a minuscule group of scholars, hand-picked by the authorities but still not allowed to quote openly from the original source. As the Communist system was dismantled and access to previously classified documents improved, ownership of the papers was questioned and objections were raised to the public release of what those with vested interests perceived as near-sacred personal information.10 Further, a hard core of Dimitrov’s admirers and self-admitted ideological heirs found it hard to face the inevitable erosion incurred by the carefully constructed imagery, due to growing archival openness and free discussion.11 In turn, the fate of the most dramatic reminder of Dimitrov’s exclusive status – the mausoleum, in a prime location in Sofia, where his embalmed body was displayed for 40 years – fascinated politicians, pundits and graffiti artists alike. The demolition of this unique edifice in the Communist zone took place in 1999, but not before it triggered parallel political, academic and popular debates which exposed deep divisions in society regarding the roots and the nature of local Communism, as well as the methods of preserving its memory. The resulting clash of ideas illuminated the need for the post-Communist society to rationalise, and accept its recent history. Similar reasoning underpins the necessity to give a fresh and thorough account of Dimitrov’s life and political activity, now based on the increasingly available documentary evidence and employing transparent methods of research. The task is well overdue, as the explosion of journalistic articles has not been matched by academic output. Research publications have been few and far between, in stark disproportion to the enormity of the topic. Rarely have established scholars ventured beyond previously expressed views, some preferring to paper over rather than stir controversy. 12 For its part, the younger generation has sought to make its mark by employing novel techniques and steering away from subjects that appeared ‘overdone’. Those who have engaged with Dimitrov’s work have done so sporadically and mostly chosen particularly problematic and emblematic aspects, often pursuing an extreme line of interpretation. Even in their sum total, such writings are far from a dispassionate discourse on the driving motives and the meaning of Dimitrov’s actions. This is not to deny the steady progress made by Jordan Baev towards a fuller and more balanced political portrait of Dimitrov, while other authors such as Georgi Naumov and Valeri Kolev have given much-needed nuance to the context in which he operated. 13 Further, there has gradually emerged an original and more theoretical approach, as offered for instance by Nikolay Poppetrov, to assess Dimitrov’s significance in national history and discuss his aspirations and achievements within a ‘hero or villain’ dichotomy.14 Arguably among the most valuable results of recent Bulgarian historical scholarship are the printed compendia of documents related to the evolution and policies of the Bulgarian Communist Party. These are thematically organised, tracing for instance relations with the Comintern or changing attitudes to the obsessive Macedonian question. They are an admirable collaboration between archivists and historians, and an informative and thought-provoking initiation into particular developments or

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individual political figures. They form indispensable if much less-known companions to Dimitrov’s celebrated diary, providing a much-needed perspective on his actions – and at times an interesting corrective to his private files.15 Russian historians, who collectively occupy a unique niche in the study of Communism – in terms of access to primary materials and of insight into the Soviet background of Dimitrov’s ultimately illustrious career – have generally preferred to follow a more institution-centred path. The eruditely edited series of documents dating from the Second World War and the years of the people’s democracy have been complemented by detailed surveys of the internal workings of the Comintern and the channels of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe after 1945. 16 Ongoing research into Stalin’s decision-making in particular cases, for instance into the projected Balkan federation, has brought depth and nuance to the analysis of events in which Dimitrov ostensibly played a key role.17 Over the past decade, the combination of archival releases and advances in interpretation has brought a multifaceted and dynamic picture of the Soviet approach to the Cold War. While the literature on the superpowers continues to dominate the field, a small number of fascinating studies of the lesser players have emerged; these test old assumptions and outline new parameters for analysis, not only at the international level but also within the countries which external forces appeared to have subjected to the East–West confrontation.18 Following this line of enquiry, Vesselin Dimitrov has re-examined the Bulgarian example with insight and thoroughness.19 As the theme of his monograph dictates, only Georgi Dimitrov’s final incarnation, that of national Communist leader, has been tackled to any extent. This timely update demonstrates that Bulgaria can be rightly regarded as a useful example of the overlap between Soviet ideological and strategic goals at the end of, and immediately after, the Second World War. The biggest academic impact must be attributed to two relatively recent documentary volumes, both in the English language and so reaching the widest audience. Dallin and Firsov’s somewhat misleadingly titled Dimitrov and Stalin 1934– 1943: Letters from the Soviet Archives is notable for its rich and balanced contextual analysis of a number of texts, produced or approved by Dimitrov on a variety of issues of Communist doctrine and its application. Although obviously and understandably selective, by following through several particular case-studies it sheds light on the decision-making process in the Comintern and demonstrates convincingly Dimitrov’s dependence on Stalin’s policy and will. This is reflected even in the fact that in this intriguing relationship, it was Dimitrov the self-professed disciple who produced most of the known documents – letters, memoranda, requests – whereas Stalin in his indisputably superior position mostly spoke, and often did so curtly or ambiguously.20 However, the editors’ belief that Dimitrov’s diary, excerpts from which they used, highlighted his ‘superb memory and capacity to reproduce conversations and documents accurately’21 should be qualified by observing that on numerous occasions his personal records did not present the full picture, to say the least. Dimitrov’s journal itself, published in several European languages in addition to Bulgarian and English, each with its own historical introduction, affords a fascinating glimpse into the inner

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universe and the everyday reality of the man, and the working habits and the ways of thinking and acting of a member of the Soviet elite. But all this is significantly limited: the many conspicuous gaps in the journal are as evocative as its coverage. As all the respective editors note, the diary is a first-class source, primarily for the workings of the Comintern and Moscow’s navigation of Bulgarian and Balkan affairs by and through Dimitrov. It combines the trivial and the supremely important and, as Ivo Banac has pointed out, in essence places Stalin at the centre of the narrative, more so than the protagonist himself.22 The diary has unequivocally vindicated the suspense preceding such a major release, but of course it should be read and understood as only one – personal – perspective on events and people. A third voluminous tome of printed original sources, again from the excellent Annals of Communism series from Yale University, puts on the spot one of the definitive moments in Dimitrov’s work, that of the expansion of the Great Purge over the Comintern headquarters. 23 The measured, yet incisive commentary reveals the complex dynamic whereby the international Communist movement was overwhelmed by trends generated deep within the Bolshevik practice and mentality; it also demonstrates the thin line between perpetrators and victims, a division which affected Dimitrov as well as his subordinates at all levels. Altogether, from these documents an image of Dimitrov emerges as a relentless bureaucrat, never far from the centre of power and inextricably implicated in the whole concept and act of revolutionary terror. A fresh investigation into the life and political activities of Georgi Dimitrov is called for, as it is evident that his progress as a high-ranking professional Communist coincided with some of the most important turning points in European history before, during and immediately after the Second World War. At his zenith, Dimitrov was a member of Stalin’s inner circle, at the top of the Soviet state and party hierarchy. Accepted as a symbol of anti-fascism, he was instrumental in Moscow’s efforts to control and coordinate the activities of Communist parties globally. Yet, interestingly, this Communist icon has received less attention than some of his contemporaries in Eastern Europe: the magnetic Josip Tito continues to attract interest, while even lesserknown leaders such as the Romanian Ana Pauker have also merited research into their full life story.24 Just like the Bulgarian Communist Party from which he arose, Dimitrov has been commonly perceived as unwaveringly loyal to the Soviet Union. Indeed, he consistently and openly placed his faith in the Soviet model of Communism and his consideration of Soviet strategic interests at the forefront of his personal, party and even national priorities. However, it should be appreciated that these qualities were regarded as central to the doctrine of most national Communist parties, as well as to the convictions of their followers at all levels. In this respect, numerous contemporary Communist-era materials are unapologetically candid. Still, it is necessary to look beyond not only the politically-motivated idealisation but also the traditional Cold War assumptions of a one-dimensional Muscovite. The challenge is to uncover the forces and circumstances that propelled Dimitrov to the top while also seeking to explain his complex choices, and at times seemingly contradictory behaviour.

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For all the ostensibly comprehensive iconography and despite the effective Western efforts to undermine it, there certainly remain a number of unclear episodes in Dimitrov’s biography. His endeavours in exile in Central Europe during the decade before the Leipzig Trial have been virtually overlooked, despite being linked to several aspects of Bulgarian left-wing aspirations and Soviet involvement therein. 25 Cursory knowledge of these issues needs expanding, to elucidate vital points of Comintern tactics and foreign policy in the period. Dimitrov’s undercover services for the Comintern in the late 1920s and into the 1930s formed in a sense the groundwork for his subsequent elevated position in Moscow. Questions also remain over his bureaucratic role and ideological position during the Great Purge, a period in which he was ironically both at his most triumphant and most vulnerable. 26 Moreover, his experience of high Stalinism cannot be dissociated from responsibility for the persecution of political opponents and for the first show trials in early Communist Bulgaria. Such an investigation not only fills factual lacunae but implicitly adds to the understanding of the process of the making of a Communist leader of international status. On the one hand, it sheds light on the personality traits and wider events that made Dimitrov exceptional; on the other hand, it discusses whether his particular story was representative of the fate of a larger number of Communist émigrés. Among the initiatives with which Dimitrov is often identified is that of the SouthSlav federation. At the end of the Second World War, it was from the start riddled by clashing Balkan national interests and power aspirations upon which intricate Soviet– Yugoslav tensions were additionally projected. Ironically, it was Dimitrov’s ill-advised actions that propelled the maze of complications to the centre of the brewing Stalin– Tito rift, a conspicuous reminder that Dimitrov could still exert some influence beyond his own country.27 However, what is invariably obscured in this notorious event is the fact that Dimitrov had been the champion of federation before Tito rose to power or the idea registered in Stalin’s post-war calculations. It is essential to appreciate that in this instance Dimitrov was pursuing long-held convictions that only temporarily coincided with Soviet interest. Yet the manner in which the conflict was resolved unambiguously proved Dimitrov’s deference to Stalin, although not necessarily to the detriment of what he perceived as Bulgaria’s priorities. Even the most-discussed facets of Dimitrov’s long political career reveal substantial grey areas in terms of both facts and interpretation. As with many idealised – or demonised – historical figures, only Dimitrov’s most popular and contentious deeds and pronouncements have captured public interest and scholarly attention. The resultant image can be schematic, shallow and often anachronistic. As Dimitrov was involved in, or observed at close quarters, so many dramatic events in the twentieth century, it has been hard to refrain from politicising his contribution and forming moral judgement. Georgi Dimitrov played a substantial role in the evolution of Communism in Bulgaria, in the Balkans and in Europe as a whole. He presided over the international organisation of Communist parties in a crucial decade which defined their whole identity. Occasionally, his reach stretched even farther, as demonstrated by his contacts with the Chinese Communists.28 In his prime, Dimitrov had unique access to Stalin

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and the topmost Soviet policy-makers, and interacted more than any other Soviet statesman with the leaders of foreign Communist parties. An objective and fresh account of his work should take into consideration newly-available evidence, and the evolution of the debate on both international Communism and the early Cold War. It is necessary to integrate individual findings into a continuous narrative that simultaneously offers a systematic and balanced analysis. Against a backdrop of the reinvigorated discussion on the essence of the Communist regimes, an enquiry into the life of an individual of Dimitrov’s standing can provide valuable insight into the whole mechanics of the Soviet system’s spread across Eastern Europe. A real challenge also lies in exploring Dimitrov’s thinking as a Communist ideologue and politician. Here, elements of originality alongside compliance with Stalin, of national agendas and Soviet strategy should be disentangled to increase understanding of the progression of Communism and Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe. Following Dimitrov’s advance as a professional revolutionary, from his first affiliation to the Bulgarian Communist Party, through his exile in Central Europe and his headship of the Comintern in Moscow, to his return to Bulgaria as its first Communist ruler highlights the complexities in his character and the dilemmas in his work. It illuminates the extremities and the compromises, the versatile nature of his activity, but above all the dynamics between the leading position in his national party and his subordination to the Soviet Union.

* * * A brief entry from the summer of 1939 in Georgi Dimitrov’s diary describes his second driving lesson, in the vicinity of the famous Boroviha sanatorium near Moscow: I drove the automobile well. At the turn towards the sanatorium, the automobile hit a tree – the bonnet was damaged and R[osa] Yu[lievna] hurt her leg. Gott sei Dank!!! Everything went fine, the damage to the automobile is negligible and the people have not suffered much. ‘A lucky disaster,’ it might be said.29

Trifling as this incident may seem, it is a suitable metaphor for significant moments in Dimitrov’s life, and above all of his retrospective approach to them. His mentality unmistakably shines through these few sentences. The laconic and optimistic report is highly representative of his well-cultivated ability to claim credit for positive developments, while turning his back on responsibility for any conflicts or drawbacks. And indeed, there were numerous controversies and substantial failures in his long political career – all of them marked by Dimitrov’s self-confidence and by his success in managing to distance himself from accidents and casualties. From the September Uprising to the Great Terror and on to the violent dictatorship established in Bulgaria, Dimitrov refused to acknowledge the political failures and personal tragedies that many of his actions inflicted. Always the skilful propagandist and political survivor, he insisted these actions were necessary and ultimately positive. His propensity to adjust his ideas and reinvent his image served him well in his long and ostensibly successful career.

1 RISING THROUGH THE RANKS, 1902–21

Little in Georgi Dimitrov’s personal and social background hinted at his future as a well-known politician in Bulgaria, let alone a world-famous international leader. He began life as the eldest son of an ordinary couple in an inconspicuous village. His early years were marked by the family’s austerity and instability – but also by their search for opportunities. In such conditions, his character evolved to become stubborn but sanguine, both resilient and rebellious.

* * * Georgi Dimitrov Mihailov was born on 30 June 1882 1 in the tiny village of Kovachevtsi in western Bulgaria. His parents lived there for a while before moving, first to the nearby town of Radomir and then to the capital, Sofia. The family’s migration had started even earlier from the mountainous Pirin region in Macedonia, a land of complex and contested ethnic character with a predominantly Bulgarian population. Both his father Dimitur and mother Parashkeva came from places that had participated in the so-called Kresna-Razlog Uprising of the summer of 1878, a protest against the Berlin Treaty signed by the European powers in June of that year. This excluded Macedonia from the large independent Bulgarian state that had emerged only three months earlier with the San Stefano agreement that ended the Russo–Ottoman war of 1876–8. The loss of a province perceived by most Bulgarians, for ethnic, cultural and historical reasons, as inextricably involved in the idea of their nation engendered a national drama which dominated every aspect of Bulgarian development in the first half of the twentieth century. Dimitrov’s Macedonian roots place him in the company of many other Bulgarian politicians; his later views on the solution of the so-called ‘Macedonian question’ were largely devoid of nationalist sentiment. It is possible that Dimitrov’s parents immigrated into the Bulgarian principality as a result of the Kresna-Razlog Uprising, but the suggestion that they had actively engaged in it seems more likely the stuff of subsequent Communist hagiography, looking to link Dimitrov with the tradition of the Bulgarian struggle for national liberation.2 As the two young people crossed the border into the new state, they were probably driven by a mixture of economic and political factors, exploring new opportunities as well as escaping the restriction of minorities under Ottoman rule. After five centuries of foreign domination, Bulgaria emerged as a socially egalitarian but economically backward society, with an overwhelming majority of subsistence farmers. Dimitrov’s parents too were of peasant stock, yet they benefited from the increasing social and economic mobility afforded by national independence.

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Considering the place and time of Dimitrov’s birth, his was an average lower-class family. There are different versions as to his father’s and mother’s early occupations and it would not have been untypical for them to change jobs seasonally. By the time they settled in Sofia, his father was running a small business, making traditional male headwear by hand and selling it from his shop in a busy high street. Communist literature invariably described him as honest and hard-working, but could add little of more substance. Georgi Dimitrov hardly ever mentioned his father in his sporadic reminiscences of his childhood and youth – in contrast to the open affection displayed for his mother. She was the one who was later vocally celebrated in the authorised biographies as a ‘fighter for justice’ and supporter of her children’s revolutionary beliefs.3 Before her marriage, she had worked as a hired farm-hand and as a servant in wealthier households. She learned to read only after she married and had children. Dimitrov sometimes claimed that he was born in the field while his mother was harvesting. Hard as it is to confirm this, it would not have been anything out of the ordinary at the time. Georgi was the eldest of six brothers and two sisters. Although clearly not wealthy, their father was able to support the fast-growing family and in a few years to build their own house on the outskirts of the city. 4 It was adequate, and later renovated, but located in one of the swelling poor quarters where many new arrivals from the countryside crowded into illegal and unhygienic accommodation. Personal details of the first two decades of Dimitrov’s life are scarce. Most intriguingly, however, he was raised in the fold of the Evangelical Church, a minority Protestant denomination in the traditionally Eastern Orthodox Bulgaria. His devout parents had possibly already been converted in their birthplaces, where North American missionaries had been very successful in the latter half of the nineteenth century.5 Another version has it that Dimitrov’s father adopted Evangelism under the influence of the relatives who helped him settle in Sofia.6 The fact of this religious background was deliberately overlooked by Communist historians, who underlined only Dimitrov’s humble beginnings.7 Dimitrov himself only very rarely and grudgingly admitted to the fact, for instance stating in October 1920 that his ‘father had the misfortune of being an evangelist; these people were agents of the capitalist policy of the USA . . . agents of the big trusts’.8 Dimitrov’s elder sister recalled that he was a lively but generally well-behaved child, who always owned up to occasional mischief and respected his mild-tempered mother. Reading between the lines of the laconic early memories, he could be seen as boisterous, tending towards unruly. Although undoubtedly intelligent, Dimitrov only focused on what interested him. That he was undisciplined and stubborn might explain why he failed to take advantage of the excellent educational opportunities within the Bulgarian Protestant community. Giving children, particularly boys, a good schooling was generally highly regarded across Bulgarian society, and Protestants were as a rule especially ambitious and enlightened. However, around the age of ten Dimitrov entered into such a serious conflict with the local pastor that he was banned from Sunday school.9 He then stopped attending religious services altogether, thus putting to rest his mother’s alleged aspiration for him to join the clergy. So intense was the grudge he bore against the church of his childhood that in 1896, years after he had

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broken with his faith, Dimitrov produced Kukurigoo (‘cock-a-doodle-doo’), a ‘satirical newspaper’. More of a leaflet, its main targets were priests and religion, causing acute embarrassment to his pious parents; fortunately for them, only two issues appeared.10 It is possible that the defiant streak in Dimitrov’s character also accounted for his untimely departure from school, having completed no more than six years of primary school.11 Later, this became almost a boast for him, but at the time it undoubtedly brought much grief to his parents. He also subsequently maintained that his health in infancy had always been precarious and that an exhausting illness at the age of 12 had left him unable to return to his studies properly. Such a story immediately raises the question as to how a child judged too ill to sit in a classroom was allowed to take up a physically demanding job – which is precisely what happened. An alternative if speculative explanation might be that the rigid school routine was not to Dimitrov’s liking. Still, it is plausible that Dimitrov had to help his parents supporting their big household. Even if this is taken at face value, it is clear that by leaving school and denouncing the church, he was already breaking with the kind of life his parents had offered. Notably – and contrary to tradition as the eldest son – he showed no interest in his father’s trade, nor did he accept the first opportunities that came along: apparently, he was put off by the noise, dirt and smell at both a carpenter’s and a blacksmith’s. Eventually, he started an apprenticeship in a printing house, where the work appealed to him at once. He was fascinated to discover how the letters were put together to form a word, then the words composed into sentences and eventually whole pages of newspapers and books appeared.12 Dimitrov learned quickly on the job, showing proficiency in deciphering illegible handwriting. Soon the boy from the slums became intrigued by the content of his work, especially of the newspapers he was setting to type. Reading the political press now formed a part of his daily routine; he was soon interested in domestic and international news and aware of the debates in Bulgarian politics. This whole new world was not simply exciting but proved to be a life-defining experience. It also triggered a near-obsession with the written word; for the rest of his life he derived immense satisfaction from publications bearing his name. Dimitrov’s personal social evolution paralleled the contemporary development of Bulgaria, which was aspiring to modernise itself after gaining sovereignty. Dimitrov was the grandson of peasants and the son of a craftsman, but himself a proletarian. These generational changes in his family reflected the evolving social demography of the country, where rural migrants were drawn en masse to the city. At the time he started work, factory labourers in Bulgaria numbered approximately 6,000 – no more than 0.2 per cent of the population – with the majority engaged in light industry. Trade-union activities, although dating back to the previous decade, were picking up after the strongman conservative Prime Minister Stambolov was deposed in 1894, the very year Dimitrov entered paid employment. Printing in Bulgaria, as elsewhere in Europe, was amongst the most politically aware professions. In addition to earlier workers’ societies, a Central Workers’ Printers’ Syndicate was organised in November 1894, the first trade union under the aegis of the Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party (BRSDP). The latter had emerged

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only three years earlier under the name ‘Bulgarian Social Democratic Party’ (BSDP), and was just beginning to engage with real workers rather than merely theorising about their problems.13 Dimitrov wasted no time in joining the Printers’ Syndicate, which – because of its links with the Social Democrats – in practice meant stepping into leftist politics. His very young age, lack of direct dependants and radical disposition quickly made him a most active trade unionist. Largely to proclaim its existence, the Printers’ Syndicate launched a strike in February 1895. Dimitrov, who had recently got a new job at the Liberal Club printing house, served as representative of the apprentice printers on the workers’ strike committee. The strike involved 200 workers at 13 printing houses and demanded the introduction of workplace legislation such as an eight-hour day, regular payments and the recognition of the trade union. 14 It ended in disarray, even though some employers in part accepted the demands. The next attempt was made during a wider wave of protests across the country in 1899–1900. Again, the printers played a central role after their syndicate was relaunched under the new name of Workers’ Printers’ Society in May 1899.15 At the Liberal Club printing works there were no less than ten instances of industrial action, which met with varying success. Dimitrov identified one of the major weaknesses of the strikers as the fact that not all their outbursts had been sanctioned and coordinated by the Printers’ Society.16 Dimitrov discovered his vocation in this kind of professional and social agitation. His interest and enthusiasm were first put to good use in organising book donations to set up a workers’ library. This achievement was rewarded with successive elected positions, first on the board of the Workers’ Printers’ Society in 1901. For several months in the following year he acted as the Society’s book-keeper. 17 He was also an eager and popular participant in the social events, an important part of the life of the trade union. These were mostly weekend hiking trips, a popular leisure pursuit, often visiting one of the many monasteries in the mountains around Sofia. A picnic in the grounds would be accompanied by a presentation on current political and trade-union matters, reviews of literature or celebration of historic dates. Gradually Dimitrov’s profile as a workers’ activist rose. His name became increasingly familiar through his publications in the Printers’ Society’s newspaper; his earliest signed contribution was a report dated 16 July 1902 on the recent quarterly general meeting.18 For the first time he voiced his views that the trade union should prepare its members for ‘conscious planned struggle for their interests’. Soon he was even criticising the Printers’ Society for not paying sufficient attention to the recruitment and education of unorganised workers. But the brunt of his energy was spent on persistent demands for the improvement of working conditions in the printing shops. The reluctance of owners to address even basic demands such as the supply of drinking water to the premises forced Dimitrov and others to initiate an appeal to the Health Inspectorate in Sofia. The state authorities were asked to investigate the wide-spread poor health and safety provisions on the shop floor – to no avail. At about the same time, Dimitrov was involved in preparing the application of the Printers’ Society to join the International Printers’ Union.19 Through these experiences, Dimitrov’s energetic and emotional personality was finally unleashed,

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finding a true calling. He showed commitment, purposefulness and the beginnings of longer-term political vision, and particularly an awareness that the trade unions needed not only a popular base but also skilful management and strong institutional links. Dimitrov’s growing trade-union work and ambitions led him to attempt to fill the wide gaps in his education. At the Workers’ Social Club in Sofia he attended an extramural programme of studies which mixed basic school subjects with more advanced lectures on politics and economics. The latter were delivered by the leaders of the BRSDP, whose knowledge and confidence immensely impressed Dimitrov; he was almost instantly recruited to the Socialist cause.20 Marxism became the focus of his already avid if unsystematic reading, which in turn reinforced his political passion. He devoured the biographies of Bulgarian national heroes by Dimitur Blagoev, the foremost figure of Bulgarian Socialism, who presented the struggle for independence as essentially social and economic strife. Through Blagoev’s central theoretical piece, What is Socialism and Does a Basis for it Exist Here?, first published in 1891, Dimitrov discovered the idea that capitalism was an unavoidable stage in humanity’s social and political development. This and subsequent works by leading Bulgarian Social Democrats were of immense benefit to a budding activist like Dimitrov, who could not read the theses of European Marxist thinkers in the original and depended on native adaptations and translations. The opportunity was both illuminating and limiting, as he was understandably overwhelmed by the received wisdom of the early native Socialists. Additionally, Russian literature was more easily available and readable without translation. Dimitrov was acquainted, for instance, with Georgiy Plekhanov’s writings, which were particularly popular. Like many of his contemporaries, he found his all-time favourite in Nikolay Chernyshevsky’s What Is to Be Done?, the novel that inspired generations of revolutionaries in the latter nineteenth century. Later Dimitrov recounted how he too had put himself through the privations and tests of will deliberately undergone by the most captivating character, Rakhmetov, a tough and ascetic professional revolutionary who famously slept on a bed of nails. It is possible that such an assertion was only made in order to liken Dimitrov to Lenin, a known admirer of Rakhmetov; there is no other evidence of Dimitrov displaying interest in physical training. Inspired by his chosen social and political milieu, Dimitrov began forming his political opinions and preferences. Because of his deficient education and limited life experience, his views were exclusively derived from the Socialist ideology and propaganda into which he was irreversibly drawn. This could explain why he naturally gravitated towards the more extreme political positions and why he was so unwavering in his convictions. Initially without many professional or social prospects, he had found a simple and convincing political doctrine which gave him a clear direction in life. It was only a matter of time before Dimitrov became a full member of the BRSDP. Much later, his elder sister remembered him saying, ‘I’ve found a better church than father’s and a better school than the Sunday one!’ 21 Whether or not this was a genuine quote, it certainly described plausibly Dimitrov’s thorough immersion in Socialist beliefs and activism.

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Dimitrov himself seemed to hesitate between 1902 and 1903 as the moment of his entry in the Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic Party, stating different dates in different documents.22 This might be explained by the changes the party experienced in 1903. The occasion of his enrolment however was remembered, as instead of reading out the standard promise he made a passionate and personal declaration of accepting Marxist teachings and Social Democrat policy. Living up to his pledge, Dimitrov demonstrated a rising zeal and a desire for tangible results. Dimitrov’s background and route into the Socialist ranks were a far cry from those of the intellectual revolutionaries who dominated the Bulgarian Socialist movement at the time. By 1903, the BRSDP had existed for 12 turbulent years under the leadership of its founder Blagoev, known as ‘the Granddad’. It was a source of great pride for his Bulgarian followers that he had previously initiated the first Socialist group in Russia while on a university scholarship in St Petersburg in 1883–4. Expelled for his illegal activities, in early 1885 he returned to Bulgaria and threw himself fully into Socialist propaganda and organisation. Across the country, a number of other Socialists, many of them teachers fresh from studies abroad, set up a dozen discussion and information circles in the late 1880s, most of which also launched periodicals. Blagoev was heavily influenced by Plekhanov, whose opinions he consulted from his first steps through to most of his political activity. Indeed, from its inception the Bulgarian Socialist movement remained largely in the shadow of its Russian counterpart, a factor that sheds light on some of the dogmatism of Blagoev’s circle of associates and followers. That even those Bulgarian Socialists who were educated in Central and Western Europe gravitated towards their Russian contemporaries is exemplified by the well-known Krustyu (Christian) Rakovski, who had been close to Plekhanov in the 1890s but later emerged as one of Lenin’s confidants during the First World War and eventually became a top Soviet official and diplomat in the early Bolshevik regime.23 The attraction of the Russian revolutionaries was determined by Slavic affinities and above all by general similarities in terms of economic backwardness and a majority peasant population. Between them, Blagoev, grounded in his rapidly growing yet essentially provincial organisation, and Rakovski, a peripatetic cosmopolitan, represented the range of intellectual and activist legacy on which the Bulgarian Socialist party drew. Dimitrov matured politically under Blagoev’s powerful if distant tutelage. Later he tried to legitimise his own position by claiming to have been among Blagoev’s close associates. He truly admired the founder’s steadfastness and uncompromising stance and invariably took his side in the incessant arguments among the Bulgarian Socialists. There is no evidence that Blagoev ever particularly praised Dimitrov or picked him out from the younger cohort. The orientation of Dimitrov towards trade-union work put him in more direct contact with Blagoev’s long-standing friends and collaborators Georgi Kirkov and Gavril Georgiev, both esteemed first-generation Socialists. Yet there is nothing to suggest that their relationship with Dimitrov ever evolved beyond their common political work, with its clearly established lines of seniority, or that he was welcomed into the close-knit circle of the founding fathers.

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Joining the Printers’ Society and the BRSDP, Dimitrov embraced the view that these organisations should be strictly hierarchical and centralised. He was also a proponent of closely aligning the trade unions – to the point of subordination – with the political party, a principle which meant deep dividing lines within the Bulgarian Socialist movement. By the time Dimitrov signed up to the BRSDP, it had already split once (in 1892) following long-existing internal differences, but after two years the two factions had merged again, realising that they were too insignificant on their own. The debate continued within the reunited organisation as to whether priority should be given to political revolutionary agitation, or to more practical work for better working conditions and social benefits for the workers. The exponents of the latter view were grouped around Yanko Sakuzov, one of Blagoev’s earliest political partners and friends, who now argued in favour of political cooperation with other parties and stood for independent, if not completely neutral, trade unions. They were dubbed ‘common cause’ Socialists, after Sakuzov’s eponymous journal, or ‘Broad’ Socialists, as they looked to reach out to a larger social basis than the tiny industrial proletariat. They opposed what they believed was Blagoev’s too ‘Narrow’ interpretation of Marxism, which rested on a relatively small set of ideas; these included the insistence that only workers devoted to the Marxist ideals should be admitted into the party and its adjacent revolutionary trade unions, and that the Socialists should campaign strictly on their own political programme, refusing any political compromise with bourgeois parties even if it would lead to parliamentary representation. Indeed, Sakuzov’s approach was best exemplified by his willingness to seek support in rural areas, which in 1899 secured his group half a dozen seats in the National Assembly. The same year he also favoured a loose alliance with the just-founded Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BZNS).24 The ‘Granddad’s’ fundamentalist vision, verging on dogmatism, was later presented by his adherents as ideological kinship with Lenin’s Bolsheviks. The claim was based mostly on a pure chronological coincidence: the chronic tensions within the BRSDP erupted anew in early 1903, and culminated in another formal rift in the summer between the clashing Broad and Narrow factions. This occurred at roughly the time when the Mensheviks and Bolsheviks of the Russian Social Democratic Party embarked on their famous collision course in the second half of 1903. Actually, the disagreements within the BRSDP clearly echoed the divergent trends that permeated the enormously influential German Socialist Party, and through it spread in the Second Socialist International. While a combination of local factors and theoretical advances had led to the emergence of reformist views and practices in all European Socialist parties, the Bulgarian Broad faction derived most of their arguments from Eduard Bernstein’s theses about the changing nature of capitalist society, which required the Socialists to adapt their thinking and action. For their part, Blagoev’s Narrow faction adhered to the mainstream views of Karl Kautsky. 25 Despite the passionate disputes over the application of Marxist theory in Bulgaria, none of the leaders of the Bulgarian factions made any impact on the international Socialist scene. On the other hand, even though at the turn of the century the BRSDP was the largest

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and best organised Socialist party in the Balkans, the leading lights of the Second International rarely looked in its direction. Blagoev remained inflexible both in political and personal terms, severing all relations with those who disputed his views – which, to his mind, equalled his authority. By all accounts he was obsessed with the ideological orthodoxy of the party, insisting on an unwavering line of class struggle even though the proletariat in Bulgaria was obviously small and economic conditions made it an unlikely contender for revolution. Yet Blagoev had little respect for Lenin, and indeed only faint knowledge of who Lenin actually was. In this round of in-fighting, he quoted heavily from Lenin’s What Is to Be Done? in the belief that it was penned by his mentor Plekhanov. While Plekhanov’s major works had been duly translated into Bulgarian and published by the party, only extracts from Lenin’s writings appeared, sporadically, in the Socialist periodical press.26 The fact that theoretical argument was so intense in the Socialist party almost 20 years after the beginnings of Socialist activity in Bulgaria reflected the economic and social development of the country. Blagoev’s followers were interested in proselytising among the pure proletariat, who formed, however, only a miniscule part of the population. Industrial activity was mostly small-scale and only one step removed from agriculture in terms of both its products and its work-force – many members of the latter were seasonal hands hired at the factories only when there was little to do on the farms. Aware of its general economic backwardness, independent Bulgaria’s political elite had sought to stimulate native industry in the final decade of the nineteenth century through a range of fiscal and protectionist measures. This was also a time of increasing state investment in big infrastructure projects such as railways, seaports and electrical production. These in turn contributed further to the emergence of new enterprises, for instance in the production of construction materials, or the consolidation of old ones such as textiles and food-processing. However, with roughly 750 miles of rail track in 1901 and just over 200 factories, the majority of these with less than 20 workers, Bulgaria remained a largely unmodernised economy. It was not only a society of peasants but mostly of smallholders who cultivated dispersed plots by traditional methods and tools.27 Such factors hindered the spread of Marxist ideas, which took root exclusively in the towns among small circles of intellectual converts. Trade-union activity was the link that united the professional revolutionary thinkers at the helm of the party and the workers in whose name revolution was to take place. Absorbed by the printers’ trade union and taking his first steps into the Socialist party, Dimitrov had followed the ideological disagreement in the top leadership from a distance. The little understanding he had of the theoretical polemic among prominent European Socialists was derived from its representation in Bulgarian Socialist periodicals and its reflection in the dispute between Broads and Narrows. For him the quarrels in the BRSDP were above all a matter of loyalty – both to recognised leaders and to familiar tactics. He was naturally drawn to the more radical side of the debate, but was also aware that so far in Bulgarian politics Blagoev’s faction seemed to offer a clearer vision, and one to which previous challengers had repeatedly come back.

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Dimitrov was not even in the city when a group of Narrows seceded from the Sofia organisation of the BRSDP in February 1903, a momentous event which soon gave a new direction to the whole party. At the time he was working in Samokov, a town in the mountains about 20 miles south of the capital; although the circumstances are obscure, he had a position with the Protestant printing press adjacent to the American College, a respected secondary school established and run by Protestant missionaries. This was most likely a favour his mother had obtained due to her good standing in the community. Despite his long estrangement from the church, Dimitrov, who had lost his job in Sofia and could not find a new one there, could not afford to reject the charitable offer. However, afterwards he hardly ever mentioned the six or seven months he spent in Samokov.28 A few memoirs, recorded at least half a century later, only dwelt on Dimitrov’s attempted Socialist agitation, maintaining that the little town’s authorities were disturbed by his revolutionary ‘corruption’ of students and young workers and demanded his dismissal. There is some anecdotal evidence that Dimitrov’s presence was disruptive in other ways. Inebriated, he clashed with a local pastor and disturbed religious services; he also arrogantly challenged a visiting Protestant dignitary who was giving a public lecture.29 Following the factional split in Sofia, Dimitrov identified categorically with the orthodox Narrow wing. However, initially this attracted just four local organisations, with a total of some 1,200 members – and no more than a third of those were manual workers. In such an unenviable situation, there were opportunities for young and ambitious activists and Dimitrov seized them. In June 1903 he was able to publish his first article in the Socialist newspaper Rabotnicheski Vestnik (‘Workers’ Newspaper’). It was entitled ‘Opportunism in the Trade Unions’ and dealt with the aspect of the movement he knew best. The piece was a vicious attack on the Broad faction, who were accused of ‘preying’ on the low consciousness of organised workers and aiming to ‘wreck and demoralise the trade unions, luring them away from their proletarian path’. Dimitrov proposed that this should be countered by systematic efforts to enlighten members by acquainting them with the theory of class struggle and the link between trade-union and party activity. ‘And the day will not be far when the fog will lift, ignorance will disappear, passions will calm down and the misguided . . . will come to their senses . . . under the banner of proletarian Socialism.’ 30 The eloquent and purposeful writing demonstrated real political passion but also the author’s declaratory and derivative views: in a rather stereotypical manner, he was mainly repeating ideas that had long been the focus of disagreement between the two Socialist strands. The piece also revealed an intolerance of others’ opinions and an assault on opponents rather than engaging in intellectual debate; these were qualities that became entrenched over time. Dimitrov’s brief stint in Samokov was almost the last time he practised his profession. After returning to Sofia, he moved around several printing houses but soon abandoned his day job to become a paid activist of the Socialist party. He launched his political career on the back of turmoil and readjustment: on 6–12 July 1903 Blagoev convened a congress where his followers expelled his rivals from the party. Each of the two groups claimed the original name of the party, so both had to add their popular

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designations in brackets: Blagoev’s Socialists became the BRSDP(N) for Narrow and Sakuzov’s the BRSDP(B) for Broad. The Socialist trade unions too were immediately torn in two, but only one organisation declared for the Narrows. To Dimitrov’s chagrin, his cherished Workers’ Printers’ Society chose to remain with the Broads. Still, the unemployed 21-year-old managed to turn a series of personal and political disasters into advantages, emerging as a most successful trade-union organiser.31 In April 1904, Dimitrov led the few like-minded former members of the Printers’ Society to establish a new Workers’ Printers’ Syndicate, this time aligned with the Narrows. His pioneering role was recognised officially the following year, when he was elected Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Printers’ Syndicate. 32 His own rather gruesome metaphor shone a light on his preferred method of recruiting members: ‘From the decomposing cadaver of the Printers’ Society we can always tear pieces until it is buried.’33 This approach was applied by Dimitrov to other professions, and by July 1904 the Narrow faction set up the General Workers’ Trade Union (ORSS) with about 1,500 members just as their Broad rivals organised the Free Trade Union Federation (SORSS). The ORSS was unquestionably based on the Marxist law of class struggle; the very act of its establishment confirmed its tight ideological affiliation and organisational coordination with the party. Its leadership was dominated by Narrow activists, making its auxiliary function to the party blatantly obvious.34 The ORSS was headed by one of the Social Democrat founding fathers, Georgi Kirkov, who had been present at Dimitrov’s emotional inauguration into the ranks of the BRSDP the previous year. Indeed, that occasion had highlighted Dimitrov’s oratory gifts and ideological ardour, of which the party elders began to take notice. To ordinary folk, on the other hand, he appeared both impressive and accessible: he had first-hand experience of hired labour, he seemed earnest and bonded easily with workers over a drink. All of this made him stand out among the older, better-educated party philosophers; he had a knack for persuasion and organisation and excelled in grassroots work. Indeed, the young man soon became the executive leader of the ORSS, and was elected its Organisational Secretary at its Second Congress in August 1905.35 Addressing that forum, and envisaging the accelerating contest between the Narrow and Broad trade unions, he seriously criticised his own organisation: he lamented its lack of a clear plan of action and especially its haphazard recruiting practices, mainly taking place in the course of strikes; he admitted ‘a mass exodus of members’. 36 Meanwhile, he had immersed himself in the groundwork, meeting and agitating among workers, personally presiding over the setting-up of new union cells across the country and also in new industries. The number of offices Dimitrov held accumulated as he sat on the Common Labour Council, the body which coordinated the strategy of the ORSS with the BRSDP(N); he was also a member of the Labour Council’s branch for the city of Sofia.37 Dimitrov routinely gave public speeches, reaching out to assorted audiences from waiters to miners. His talks invariably drew attention to the betrayal by the Broad faction, whom he characterised as ‘opportunists’; he, along with the entire Narrow leadership, perceived the struggle against them as both ideologically and tactically important. In Dimitrov’s rhetoric, the Broads assumed the role of ‘the other’,

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in opposition to whom the Narrows increasingly defined their own identity, and against whom they raged at least as much as against the original capitalist enemy. A second recurring theme in Dimitrov’s public speeches and writings from this period was the celebration of May Day, which was presented as a high point in workers’ activism. Numerous circulars, addresses, articles dwelt often and at length on the significance of the occasion and the preparation for it, to which Dimitrov attributed much more than symbolic meaning: he believed that the build-up to the day should be a shared experience which would motivate and bind workers together just as much as the exhilaration of the traditional street demonstration on the day. Similarly, the views he began articulating on the subject of workers’ protests and industrial action were unequivocal and unwavering: such actions should be centrally coordinated and carried out in a disciplined manner, and determined primarily by political considerations. In this, Dimitrov was even concerned less with the specific demands of any particular strike than with the role it would play in the creation of the party as a politically strong, coherent and efficient fighting force. Essentially, Dimitrov’s resolute trade-union work was above all a platform for his political views. His enthusiasm and popularity among workers also ensured that he soon moved further up the Narrow hierarchy. Just as he was looking for opportunities to solidify his position in the party, the top leadership was in need of vigorous and resilient activists to defend and spread its maximalist ideology in the field. Dimitrov’s big chance to prove his loyalty came with the renewed eruption of tensions within the BRSDP(N) in the summer of 1905. As a member of the Second International of Socialist parties, the quarrelsome Bulgarian Socialists had already attained notoriety: they often used the rostrum at international gatherings for settling domestic scores. On the whole, the European Socialist movement was sufficiently pluralistic and tolerant to allow different opinions to be heard. It was only at the International’s Amsterdam congress in 1904 that centralist tendencies gained the upper hand. Accordingly, the two Bulgarian factions were urged towards rapprochement, though no practical steps to this end were initiated38 – indeed, exactly the opposite occurred as another dissident group was expelled from the BRSDP(N). In this Dimitrov participated directly and eagerly while another Narrow rising star, Vassil Kolarov, attempted to justify the fundamentalist tactic outside Bulgaria. Blagoev’s new antagonists were the so-called ‘anarcho-liberals’ who argued for more internal debate and democratic discussion of policy and practice; they specifically insisted on more freedom in the party press. The dissenters were once again – as two years before – heavily represented in the Sofia party organisation, where Dimitrov was increasingly making his mark. He had already clashed with the advocates of looser discipline and intellectual diversity when he strongly attacked the views and writings of their leader Nikola Harlakov, at the BRSDP(N) congress in early August. Dimitrov condemned ‘intellectual individualism’ for undermining the unity and strength of the party. His convincing performance helped him secure the post of Secretary to the Sofia party organisation, which he then used to continue the battle. Employing methods tried in the trade unions, Dimitrov enforced organisational changes and succeeded in

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eliminating his opponents from positions where they could influence ordinary members. Just as the ‘anarcho-liberals’ were criticising the shift towards stricter discipline and centralism for stifling meaningful debate, Dimitrov cut them off from all educational and propaganda activities. These were now to be controlled by a majority committee presided over by himself. The move was shrewd as it denied the opponents a platform for presenting and popularising alternative opinions. Unable to address the various workers’ clubs and societies, ‘the anarcho-liberals’ were deprived of the most efficient method of voicing their views and recruiting support. Dimitrov used his position of strength effectively to ostracise those whom he portrayed as disturbing the party order and channels of command. He achieved this not only by firmly supporting the majority leadership but also through the timely use of bureaucratic procedure. He had not shied away from the internal quarrel but had actively and purposefully plunged into it. The one-time Sunday-school troublemaker turned into the Socialist party’s trouble-shooter, compensating for his weakness in political philosophy by eager denunciation of his adversaries and decisive action on the ground. Not only did he remain among the triumphant majority but also improved his standing within it. Simultaneously, Dimitrov directed a great deal of his plentiful energy into the expansion of the ORSS, a process which continued in a brazenly top-down manner. A committee of radicals would be appointed by the centre and tasked with campaigning and recruitment in a certain region or industry – instead of being elected by and responsible to the union members. Dimitrov successfully applied the technique to the Miners’ Union formed in late October 1905. 39 This was a cornerstone for Narrow syndicalism because it brought in not only new members but above all ‘proper’ heavyindustry proletarians, unlike the traditional craftsmen and small-enterprise labourers who constituted the majority of erstwhile ORSS members. At the time, coal-mining in Bulgaria was a particularly fertile field for Socialist agitation: the growing demand for coal production reflected the expansion of electricity plants, construction materials factories and the national transport network, including railways and seaports. All of these industries stimulated the spread of radical political ideas, as they concentrated large numbers of workers in or near vibrant urban centres. The speed of economic change meant that conditions of employment were almost by default harsh, and the workforce’s standard of living appalling. More often than not the state owned, or had a stake in, these big economic ventures, a fact that allowed the Socialists not only to denounce capitalism but directly engage in propaganda against the government.40 The Narrows specifically targeted the Pernik mines, a politically sensitive focus of discontent because of its proximity to Sofia and the strategic importance of the industry. Dimitrov visited the mines frequently, building close personal relations with the most ‘progressive’ workers, i.e. those receptive to the Socialists’ advances. He organised and supervised a propaganda circle to which he supplied Socialist literature, encouraged workers and their families to express their grievances openly, and maintained that political struggle was the only long-term solution to economic and social problems. After a year of agitation, a strike flared up in Pernik in the latter half of July 1906, seemingly spontaneously calling for better pay and social benefits. In fact,

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the BRSDP(N) had actively urged this action, seeking an opportunity to test the strength of the new trade union. The Narrow Central Committee (CC) formally charged Dimitrov with the political leadership of the strike, the biggest challenge of his political career to date. He immediately went to the mine and took up not only political but operational command: meeting the strikers, bonding with old and new acquaintances, trying to boost morale in private conversations and public speeches. His presence itself signalled the involvement of the party, thus transforming the strike into a political issue. The situation was further exacerbated by the government’s Directorate of Mines, which sided with the mines’ management, and threw the town administration and even army squads into breaking the unrest. In the end, having held out for more than a month, the strike collapsed – the company could afford to procrastinate, while the strikers began to suffer from loss of earnings. In simple terms, this was a failure, but the Narrow Socialists gave it a positive spin by highlighting what were for them favourable long-term effects. They rationalised the strike as the first steps towards forging a fighting force of proletarians, politically aware and capable of defending itself. The BRSDP(N) revealed its intention of using the trade unions – and its growing ability to do so – in demanding specific economic measures that also carried political implications; the party not only engaged in but precipitated direct class struggle, and so radicalised the country’s whole political discourse. As a budding politician, Dimitrov gained a great deal from the strike: his popularity amongst the more extremist workers grew, especially after he was arrested and taken back to the capital shortly after his appearance in Pernik. Interest in him was stirred by his claims that there had been three successive attempts to kill him and by his boasts that he had outsmarted his attackers. His reputation at the ORSS and the BRSDP(N) was also enhanced – he had proven himself an able propagandist and a successful organiser. To consolidate his position further he now needed to convince people to ignore the fact that the strike had ended with little tangible results; so he insisted that it was a breakthrough which had advanced workers’ political education and discredited the state.41 In contrast, Dimitrov barely registered the equally long and more successful strike of railway and other transport workers at the end of the year – unsurprisingly, since most participants in that action were members of the rival Broad trade unions. The Pernik strike had stood out in a wave of industrial discontent that led the Narrow Socialists to conclude that they were on the right course, and one which should be pursued even more persistently. One means towards this was to reorganise the trade unions into a strictly centralised and vertically integrated federation of professional organisations. The new structure would spread across the country and gradually envelop all spheres of the economy, strengthening the organisational and ideological connection to the party. Focused on this project, Dimitrov and his fellow syndicalist leaders missed the fact that the SORSS had successfully applied to join the International Trade Union (ITU). The rules of this organisation allowed for a single member from any country and so the ORSS – which also aspired to external recognition – could not be admitted.

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The prevailing sense of momentum in Dimitrov’s political career in the early 1900s was accompanied by happy changes in his personal life. Through his trade-union work in 1905 he met Ljubica Ivošević, also an activist. She chaired the founding meeting of the Workers’ Tailors’ Syndicate in April 1904 where Dimitrov delivered a lecture. Afterwards, she was among the organisers in August 1905 of a conference of Socialist women aimed at kick-starting a campaign for the adoption of a ‘Women and Child Labour Law’, a long-standing demand on the Socialist agenda. Her own profession was rather unusual – she had trained as a specialist lingerie maker, at one time holding a job at the Palace tailor’s workshop.42 Of Serbian nationality, her life story sounded a little like a fairytale: she had been orphaned, and then escaped from the guardianship of a wicked aunt. Living for a while in Belgrade and Vienna, she had already subscribed to Marxism before settling in Bulgaria. The relationship between Ljuba, as she was known, and ‘Georges’, as she called him (in the French manner) could be seen as one based on the attraction of opposites: whereas she came across as gracious, sensitive and insecure, he was confident and rather coarse. Further, she was much better versed than him in leftist political theory and had a knowledge of and interest in European culture. She aspired to be a proletarian poet who would praise the virtues of the working class and propagate Marxism through her art. Ljuba’s background, intellect and convictions made for a rare and delightful personality, and she soon became the defining female presence of Dimitrov’s life. Their passionate love affair led to marriage the following year. The ceremony was conducted by a liberal priest on 30 September 1906 at a small church in Pleven, in the presence of a few friends, co-partisans and Dimitrov’s mother. Ljuba had already moved into the lodgers’ flat in Dimitrov’s parents’ house. Ljuba initially persisted with her own political work, taking part in all aspects of agitation, from putting up posters to giving public lectures.43 But gradually she became more of a housewife and – despite occasionally returning to work later – her ambition was to offer spiritual fellowship and political support to Dimitrov. They shared a fascination for politics, philosophy and to some extent the arts. Ljuba is mostly remembered for encouraging and indeed guiding her 24-year-old husband to continue and broaden his self-education. She often accompanied him on his continual trips around the country. Her gentle unobtrusive influence seems to have been captured in a remembered gesture of dabbing sweat from his forehead while he was speaking at a meeting; teased for making a fuss of him, she apparently replied in all seriousness that she had devoted herself to the fulfilment of her husband’s personal and political potential.44 On another occasion, she demonstrated a more decisive and impulsive side of her character when she was briefly engaged in a brawl that flared up at a trade-unionist social event.45 However, Dimitrov’s intelligent and attractive wife was less than warmly welcomed by his family. Their personal correspondence reveals that there were unpleasant clashes, especially with Dimitrov’s mother and elder sister. It could only be guessed that with a rather traditional and pious outlook, they resented the fact that Ljuba was two years older than her husband, and already had one broken marriage behind her. Her emancipated attitude, her artistic and political aspirations were probably not

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appreciated by her in-laws. To make matters worse, Ljuba experienced bouts of jealousy as her husband generally appealed to women and liked flirting. It was not only Dimitrov’s marriage that complicated relations with his parents. It seems that his mother had initially shown tolerance of his political commitment, though the fact that on occasion she even helped him hide Socialist literature or escape the police does not in any way testify that she had been won for the cause: she was first and foremost acting as a parent and a Christian. Yet Dimitrov’s choice of the life of a professional revolutionary was worrying from both personal and religious perspectives; his parents tried hard to stay ‘a good evangelical family’ while he recruited some of his younger siblings to the Socialist ideal. There is even one extraordinary example of Parashkeva and her son working at cross-purposes: in 1909, one of their lodgers, Simeon Mutafov, experienced a spiritual revelation during talks with her. She brought the young man to church and became his spiritual guardian, encouraging him to apply to the famous Samokov College, the ambition that she had forsaken on behalf of her own son. Amazingly, Mutafov simultaneously fell under the spell of Dimitrov, who steered the country boy towards syndicalist activity and practically groomed him as a professional strike-leader in Sofia, Plovdiv and Gabrovo. Mutafov moved from one hotspot of unrest to another before indeed taking up a study grant in Samokov. His double-track career continued for more than 40 years.46 Meanwhile, Dimitrov’s own career was solely devoted to militant Marxism, the next couple of years being marked by little novelty. Dimitrov remained directly in charge of his favourite miners’ and printers’ trade unions, including editing their professional newspapers – which meant that he penned most of the contributions himself. He travelled a great deal, inspecting trade-union cells around Bulgaria and appearing anywhere workers clashed with factory owners or the government. He gradually assumed more responsibilities, burnishing his revolutionary credentials through his writing, speeches and front-line action. He therefore visibly consolidated his position in the movement, although formal promotion was slow to materialise, since the leadership of the Socialist trade unions, just like that of the party, formed a small clique. Even the next round of exclusions from the BRSDP(N) – of the so-called ‘progressives’, who in 1908 had responded to the Second International’s call for Socialist unity and suggested the resumption of negotiations with the Broads – brought no instant changes in the formal offices held by Dimitrov. However, due partially to the three purges of the party during the six years of his membership, the reshuffles advanced the younger and committed radicals of Dimitrov’s kind nearer the top. His own major recognition came a few months later when, on 21 July 1909, the annual party congress elected him Secretary of the Central Committee of the BRSDP(N). The position had only become open because one of the founding fathers, Gavril Georgiev, had withdrawn from active politics.47 As party and trade union were intertwined, Dimitrov was soon promoted within the latter’s executive: he assumed the highest position of Secretary-Treasurer of the ORSS. This was but another confirmation of the Narrow belief that the party and the trade unions were ‘two branches of Social Democracy’.

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Among Dimitrov’s first moves in his new position was an approach in August 1909 to the ITU Secretariat, delivering a report on the state and activities of the ORSS. In it, Dimitrov highlighted facts such as the increasing extent to which industrial workers were joining the unions – they currently accounted for 55 per cent of all members, double the proportion at the time of the ORSS’s formation. After consistent targeting, there were nearly 200 organised women, a number that had doubled in the course of the previous year alone. All this data, and the manner of its presentation, was used by Dimitrov to underscore his assertion that the ORSS was the true exponent of Marxist principles and the genuine representative of Bulgarian workers. The SORSS, on the contrary, was scorned as a bourgeois organisation on its last legs; Dimitrov was forthright in accusing it of corruption, inadequacy and betrayal of workers’ interests, which should logically lead to the conclusion that it should be expelled from the ITU and the Narrow syndicates admitted in its place. 48 This attempt had no immediate effect. Naturally, Dimitrov was almost exclusively engrossed in work at home. He devoted a great deal of effort to the management and reorganisation of the ORSS. He believed that the trade-union movement’s chain of command should be streamlined, but above all aimed at increasing membership numbers. In 1910, less than a full year into his position as Secretary, he initiated a recruitment drive, the target set at 10,000 members on the roll. This was not fully achieved even by 1912, when membership stood at some 8,500. Nonetheless, a crucial outcome of the recruitment initiative was that new and younger people joined, with little previous experience of professional organisations. As novices they signed up, and thus implicitly gave legitimacy, to a centralised trade union – very different from the collection of geographically dispersed local cells of the previous decade – which was now run by Dimitrov with a strong hand. Shortly after 1910 there were 235 separate occupational sections, each of which was a part of a larger industry-oriented union. For instance, the Bakers’ Section, the Waiters’ Section and others, each of which would have branches in different locations, formed the Food and Catering Union. Thirteen professional unions constituted the ORSS itself. Dimitrov’s firm insistence on the principle of centralism, i.e. on a hierarchical method of taking and implementing decisions, could not be diluted even by his strong belief in the significance of strikes for creating common experience and raising proletarian consciousness. In November 1909 he wrote to local union representatives, strongly condemning unauthorised strikes and warning that these would not be financially supported by the centre.49 On the other hand, he undoubtedly excelled in the role of professional strike-leader. He was a stimulating orator and did not shy away from direct conflict; among radical workers this earned him support and respect. It was during this period of constantly touring the country that Dimitrov acquired a kind of personal following after he had met some of his staunchest long-term supporters, for instance the metal workers’ activist Anton Ivanov. Dimitrov had a gift for stirring up turmoil and provoking extreme reactions: in June 1910 at the Plakalnitsa mine to the north of Sofia he was shot at, though not injured. Several months later he alleged in writing that a certain Broad trade-unionist was a police agent, which landed him in a libel lawsuit. Typically, Dimitrov explained the failure of several strikes during this

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period – such as those of the printers in Sofia in 1910 and port workers in Burgas in September 1911 – as the result of Broad betrayal and provocations. He used such reasoning to discredit his political opponents and promote the cause of the ORSS.50 Indeed, the ideological rigidity of the Narrows prolonged their quarrel with the Broads, who had been joined in late 1908 by all the factions previously excluded by the Narrows and formed the BRSDP(United), invariably referred to by the old nickname. As often is the case, those with very similar beliefs and objectives were also the fiercest of foes, competing as they were for the same support base. The statistics are illuminating: by 1912, the Narrow membership had more than doubled, to 2,900, since the rift in 1903. As the Broads accounted for similar numbers, the Narrows assumed that they had been deprived of half their potential members – a highly questionable proposition. This implicit claim to exclusive working-class representation was once again taken to the Second International, which had so far done little to settle the Bulgarian quarrel. At the Copenhagen congress in August 1910, the first that he attended, Blagoev demanded the expulsion of the Broad Socialists from the organisation, as followers of Bernstein’s much disputed revisionism. Instead, the International dispatched emissaries to reconcile the feuding Bulgarian Socialists and their associated trade unions. First, Lev Trotsky visited Bulgaria, where he was struck by the country’s economic underdevelopment, believing it to account for a miniscule social base for Socialism. He was initially critical of the Narrows, pointing the finger at Blagoev’s doctrinaire inflexibility. He continued to lament the dispute, but failed to arbitrate between the opponents.51 In 1911, the Bulgarian Rakovski, though acquainted with local conditions and personalities, achieved little more in the six months of his stay. It is notable that someone who was now firmly in Lenin’s Bolshevik camp did not stand behind the more militant Narrows and left Bulgaria, branding both sides in the dispute ‘political rascals’. Blagoev’s clique returned the compliment, calling him a ‘Broad revisionist’.52 Coming years after the original rifts, the International’s attempts were in practice doomed. What is more, the Bulgarian quarrels affected relations with their neighbouring Socialist parties. Already by January 1909 a Balkan conference in Belgrade led to an agreement for solidarity and cooperation between the ORSS and the Serbian trade unions. However, the Bulgarian leaders had grander political objectives in mind, proposing the formation of a federation between Bulgaria and Serbia. This would be achieved through revolutionary class struggle and would provide a solution to the disputes over territory, minorities and resources – in contrast to the warmongering approach of the bourgeoisie. Concerned that they might appear unpatriotic, the Serbian Socialists hesitated to support these ideas openly, and stood accused by Blagoev of lack of principles.53 For their part, they were concerned that the chronic Bulgarian divisions were contagious, and endangered their more volatile, younger organisation. Blagoev entered into a full-blown argument with the Serbian leader Tucović, precipitating a remark from Trotsky that Blagoev was Rosa Luxemburg’s ‘spiritual brother’ and would indeed be ‘imitated’ by Lenin.54 The Socialist meetings in Belgrade were the first international events in which Dimitrov, as a member of the CC, participated. There was nothing remarkable in his

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attendance but then he had neither the European education, nor the experience of international meetings that his colleagues Vassil Kolarov and Hristo Kabakchiev had accumulated, nor Blagoev’s authority. Yet an attempt to figure on a wider stage – the Balkans, rather than simply Bulgaria – could add to Dimitrov’s reputation, and seemed a logical step for the ambitious young leader. In any case, he fully embraced the idea of Balkan cooperation, partly influenced by his wife’s interest in and contacts with Socialists in her native land. Dimitrov had a chance to become further involved in the federation project when Sofia was chosen as the seat of the Socialist Federation, the coordinating body for the Balkan revolutionary Socialists, which had been nominally established in Belgrade in 1910. For the moment, however, it was little more than a paper creation. Simultaneously, the International’s ineffective mediation between the rival Socialists in Bulgaria made little impact on Dimitrov’s activity and views. He carried on with his work on many fronts, missing no opportunity to proselytise – from speaking at the funeral of three builders who had fallen off the scaffolding of Sofia’s main cathedral in September 1911 (and blaming their deaths on the cruel capitalist state), to supplying the introduction to the Book for Young Women Workers in May 1912. This was also a time of intensified industrial action, even if over the ten years of Dimitrov’s trade-union leadership he had become accustomed to more than one strike breaking out on average every week; the average number of participants, though, was only around 50.55 His itinerary in May 1911 was not untypical. During that month he travelled from Sofia to Varna on the Black Sea, then Russe and Svishtov on the Danube, followed by visits to Dupnitsa, Pernik, Pleven and eventually Vidin in the far north-western corner of the country.56 This busy touring was also related to the fact that Dimitrov was standing for the first time as a parliamentary candidate. The forthcoming election in June 1911 was to a Grand National Assembly, called to amend the constitution after the Bulgarian Prince, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, had used the 1908 Balkan crisis to renounce Bulgaria’s tributary position vis-à-vis the Ottoman Empire and appropriated the title of Tsar, i.e. King. Dimitrov had been selected as a Narrow Socialist candidate for Sofia and no less than 16 other towns. The BRSDP(N) was consistently critical of the manner in which Ferdinand had conducted foreign policy, refusing to support his demand for increased powers, especially the right to conclude secret treaties. Dimitrov’s own electioneering, however, paid little attention to the proposed constitutional changes: the content and methods of his campaign were virtually undistinguishable from his previous propaganda. He targeted the urban poor exclusively, focusing on the lasting themes of the low living-standards and appalling working conditions of workers, including women and children. He tirelessly pointed out that the only long-term solution to capitalist exploitation was Socialism. However, his bid to enter the National Assembly was unsuccessful, and only one Narrow Socialist sat on the Opposition benches, among deputies from the BRSDP(B) and the BZNS. The latter was an indigenous phenomenon, with an original philosophy arguing for the primary role of peasants, as the largest single element, and a relatively homogeneous one, in Bulgarian society. The first decade of its existence had seen its political fortunes steadily rising.

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Returning to his routine, Dimitrov was engrossed anew in the rivalry between the leftist trade unions, which had now also attracted outside attention. The very growth of the ORSS, while reinforcing the party, made the stalemate over its international recognition even more irritating. This was also exacerbated by the prevailing feeling that a European war was fast approaching, and by the common belief among Socialists that disaster could be forestalled by the power of the working class. In Budapest in July 1911, at the Seventh Congress of the ITU, Dimitrov spoke of the necessity of regional coordination and collaboration. He proposed that the links recently forged between the Bulgarian and Serb trade unionists be extended to other Balkan syndicalist organisations.57 Outwardly, he welcomed the appeal of the congress for unification of the two Bulgarian unions, especially since the initial approach was favourable to the ORSS. They were not yet admitted into the organisation, as they had requested two years earlier, but more significantly, the Broad syndicates were now excluded. The rationale was that a fresh start would make both sides more amenable to compromise. Blatantly disregarding the spirit of the congress appeal, Dimitrov used it to precisely the opposite effect. He judged the moment opportune for reinvigorating the membership campaign, during which in a succession of talks and speeches he claimed that the Broad trade unions had been thrown out of the international organisation. In a series of articles in Rabotnicheski Vestnik in October 1911, he reiterated his standard abuse of the SORSS, calling them ‘the bog’ and a ‘real menagerie’ whose ‘days were finished’. Similar epithets were contained in his brochure Workers’ Unity and Its Enemies, which appeared the following year.58 In June 1912 the libel case launched against him the previous year was concluded. Dimitrov was found guilty and his subsequent appeal was rejected, so he was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment. Before this was carried out, he was surprisingly allowed to travel abroad, taking part in the Second Congress of Balkan Social Democrats in Bucharest, and visiting several local syndicates. On these occasions, he spoke mainly on his favourite subject: politicising the trade unions in order to strengthen the Socialist parties.59 His propaganda was seen by the Romanian authorities as excessive, and he was expelled from the country, an act regarded in his circle as a mark of honour and of a task well done. Dimitrov then seems to have voluntarily given himself up to commence his prison sentence, in the converted Sofia Black Mosque, a remnant of Ottoman times. Not only was he unperturbed by his incarceration for a month, but he also made his stay behind bars the subject of three serial articles for Rabotnicheski Vestnik. In these he proclaimed that when eventually Socialism prevailed, it would erase all crime, which was essentially caused by the capitalist system. Through his writing he seemed almost spoiling for another legal fight by insisting that ‘the big robbers and bandits are far away – in their ministerial chairs’, although this time he abstained from naming names. 60 Dimitrov was well aware that his defiance was a sure way of making a popular name for himself, and he was clearly prepared to risk another trial to this end. Judging by his personal correspondence at the time, meanwhile, his wife made sure that he had enough food and brought other essentials from home so that he was never excessively uncomfortable.61

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Shortly after Dimitrov’s release Bulgaria and its neighbours were engaged in war against Ottoman Turkey. The Narrow Socialists were an exception from the general preoccupation with Macedonia, even though Blagoev himself hailed from that region. They scorned the patriotic view that military action was necessary to restore territory that had been lost more than 30 years earlier. This position on a specific national issue was in tune with the general conviction that war emanated from the capitalist drive for new markets. In 1911, around the time of the Italian–Turkish war, Dimitrov had already warned that the Balkans were a ‘fat prize’ over which the European powers would quarrel. He believed that a war among the capitalist states would be detrimental for the working class everywhere, as it would bring unemployment, reduce wages and precipitate attacks on political freedoms. Accordingly, he appealed to organised union members to ‘stand as the proud guards of the workers’ interests’ and ‘nobly fulfil their Socialist . . . duty’. All of which, the syndicates were rather more prosaically reminded, started with timely payment of membership dues.62 Of course, from the point of view of the management of the Narrow syndicates, Dimitrov also had to act sensibly: when thousands of workers were called out under the banners in the autumn of 1912, the BRSDP(N) and even more the ORSS were seriously destabilised in both organisational and financial terms. Simultaneously, Rabotnicheski Vestnik, which had propagated the Socialist pacifist agenda and printed numerous articles and speeches by Dimitrov, was banned for publishing an anti-war manifesto. A photograph of Dimitrov in uniform is the only evidence that he was mobilised, yet for unknown reasons he underwent neither training nor active service. It might be speculated, on the basis of his campaigning among soldiers two years later, that his well-known radicalism made his joining recruits – the majority of whom were poor, uneducated and easily manipulated – politically hazardous for the authorities. But his fellow-members of the Socialist Central Committee, Georgi Kirkov and Vassil Kolarov, were sent to the front (the latter serving as an officer) without causing political trouble.63 Dimirov stood firm against the war, calling it a ‘mad nationalistic and dynastic policy’, ‘a patriotic comedy’. Even in what were seen as brilliant military victories which would fulfil the national ideal he saw ‘rivers of tears for widows and orphans, unemployment, hunger, misery and disease’.64 Indeed, he himself suffered a personal loss, as one of his brothers was killed at the front. Conversely, the Marxist approach to war led him to insist that it would revolutionise the thinking of workers, and their understanding of politics and international developments. Therefore, the present conflict was a step towards another ‘liberating war’ that would ultimately bring ‘peace among the nations, a Balkan federative republic and the triumph of Socialism’.65 Dimitrov’s rhetoric, like that of the rest of the BRSDP(N) leadership, reiterated Blagoev’s analysis of the current situation and predictions for the future. The mixture of criticism of the government and optimism over the ultimate achievement of Socialism stopped well short of any advocacy of specific and immediate revolutionary actions. The principled opposition to war was shared by the Broads. Similarly, the Second International at its congress in Basel in November 1912 directed its member

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parties to work for a speedy resolution of the Balkan conflict, but without formulating any specific strategy.66 At least some of the Socialists’ ominous prophesies seemed to be fulfilled as the First Balkan War was followed by the Second, in which Bulgaria attacked its erstwhile allies Greece and Serbia, only to be severely defeated. What was immediately dubbed ‘a national catastrophe’ became the source of a profound collective trauma and adversely affected the country’s political and economic development. One of the most visible outcomes was the radicalisation of politics, whereby the Socialist propaganda was increasingly attractive and effective. Crucially, the general election of 24 November 1913 was a breakthrough for the Narrows who gained 18 seats. This time, Dimitrov was one of the newly successful deputies, a major event in his life and a significant advancement of his political career. He represented the town of Vratsa in north-west Bulgaria, where the Narrow party and trade unions were traditionally strong among the textile and metal-industry workers. In the course of the electoral campaign, he engaged in virulent personal clashes with one of the Broad leaders, the lawyer Krustyu Pastuhov. At the opening of the Assembly, Dimitrov and the other Narrow deputies left the chamber as King Ferdinand entered. Afterwards, their activity centred on an amnesty bill and on demands for a parliamentary investigation into the conduct of the war. Dimitrov and his co-partisans believed that the government should be held to account for the unnecessary suffering of soldiers and civilians.67 However, the Assembly was dissolved before long, as the governing Liberal Party of Prime Minister Vassil Radoslavov lacked a working majority, and new elections were called in February 1914. Dimitrov was soon engaged in a second campaigning tour. This too was not only replete with verbal abuse of his rivals but led to numerous public disturbances – the authorities feared his radicalism, and often overreacted with violence and arrests of the candidate and his companions. 68 For Dimitrov, this had by now become a welltested means of getting attention and confirming his image as a fighter. Following success in the poll he once again entered parliament, as one of 11 Narrow deputies, including Blagoev and Kolarov. Dimitrov boasted of being the first worker ever to become a deputy, even if strictly speaking he had not been a worker for almost a decade, and was presently a political activist – hardly a blue-collar occupation. It was true, though, that his background was exceptional both in the Assembly and among his fellow Narrow representatives. He was also distinguished by being the youngest member of parliament, and his energy and enthusiasm gained him the position of Secretary to the BRSDP(N) group.69 His maiden speech of 3 May 1914 was devoted to the problems of railway and postal workers who, being civil servants, were routinely moved around from posting to posting; according to Dimitrov this was deliberate interference with their political activity by the state. A fortnight later he spoke in support of the ongoing strike of tram drivers in Sofia. He also drew the Assembly’s attention to the recent abuse of Serbian workers in Bulgaria, proclaiming it unacceptable even while admitting it had been provoked by mistreatment of the Bulgarian minority in Serbia. His argument that basic human rights should be observed even at the expense of any perceived national

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interests caused great commotion in the debating chamber, where accusations of treason flew on all sides.70 In May 1914, in addition to his place in parliament, Dimitrov became a local councillor in the capital, Sofia; he had been second on the BRSDP(N) list but the leading candidate had died in the war.71 Dimitrov’s first steps in parliamentary politics coincided with a renewed attempt at reconciliation between the trade unions. The incentive came once again from the ITU, following on from the policies adopted two years earlier but interrupted by the Balkan wars. In September 1913 Dimitrov took part in an ITU conference in Vienna where he gave a presentation on the situation of the ORSS. He explained that his organisation was embarking on a course aimed at reinvigorating its membership and expanding its activities, and thus in need of financial help and moral support from abroad. This was accompanied by the customary spat with the representatives of the SORSS, who were also present. The meeting resolved to impose the condition that unification of the Bulgarian Socialist trade unions must take place before any financial aid could be authorised. Somewhat naively, the conference expressed a belief that the avowed adherence by both Bulgarian organisations to Marxist Socialism should provide a suitable basis for compromise. Dimitrov for one was more interested in the precise logistical framework for the merger rather than the ideology broadly underpinning it. Upon return from Vienna, he categorically reiterated his known views, which amounted to nothing less than a demand that individual Broad professional trade unions separately went over to the ORSS – having beforehand openly declared adherence to the classic Marxist postulate of class struggle.72 In other words, Dimitrov formulated a policy of conversion, not conciliation. As the stalemate in the Bulgarian syndicalist movement thus remained, the ITU dispatched a mission to Sofia, led by its Secretary, Karl Legien, in early April 1914. 73 On the insistence of Dimitrov, who was the chief Narrow negotiator, Legien was practically marched from the train station to the meeting hall and instantly immersed in the bitter Bulgarian quarrel, which had not subsided at all since the ITU’s resolution on unification. The Broad representatives welcoming Legien were apparently taken by surprise at the immediate start of business, and the first improvised session degenerated into a shouting match. Dimitrov, taking the initiative, launched into a well-prepared (if repetitive) attack on the Broads. He boasted of the ORSS’s successes, while arguing that in contrast the SORSS was in complete disarray. But he also virtually admitted the impossibility of trade-union unification as long as the two Socialist parties confronted each other. Finally, he tabled a proposal that the ORSS be admitted to the ITU on the condition that it would guarantee the subsequent unification of the Bulgarian syndicates. Rather transparently, he explained that the ORSS would find it easy to strike an agreement with the individual constituent unions of the SORSS.74 This preemptive move clearly signalled that the fixed views of the Narrows would not change; and Dimitrov had effectively sabotaged Legien’s mission, as no constructive dialogue was possible after his initial aggressive statement. On the final day of the talks, Dimitrov made an alternative proposal, for the convening of a unification congress where the number of delegates from each side should be proportionate to the official number of its members. The advantage for the

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Narrows, who had claimed the previous day that they had a larger following, was obvious – and the idea was dismissed by the Broads. In turn, Legien’s suggestion that both sides should first agree that the prospective united syndicate would stay entirely neutral with respect to either of the Socialist parties was rejected without hesitation by the Narrows.75 Indeed, such an option would negate the basis of the ORSS’s existence, because it had always defined itself by its inseparable links to the party. Throughout the negotiations Dimitrov engaged in what would become his favourite political tactic, namely repeatedly declaring his eagerness for a compromise while never budging from his position. All talk of a desire for understanding, all would-be concessionary proposals did not stand up to scrutiny. In addition he would immediately blame his opponents when they failed to adopt his proposals. After Legien’s departure Dimitrov published two consecutive articles in Rabotnicheski Vestnik, followed by a speech at the Workers’ House, the headquarters of the ORSS in Sofia. He mounted a comprehensive denunciation of the Broads, accusing them of obstruction, weakness and, indeed, of fear of unification. He even criticised Legien himself, for calling for ‘unprincipled unification’. 76 Partially at least, this was a response to Legien’s final statement that the leaders of the trade unions in Bulgaria were themselves the biggest obstacle to unification. The firmness Dimitrov demonstrated was certainly influenced by Blagoev, whose political evolution had been marked by a distinct inability to compromise even within his own party, and even when this stood in the way of popularising Socialist ideas. Blagoev and the rest of the Narrow leadership naturally supported Dimitrov’s approach in the latest round of inter-Socialist negotiations. But there was no closeness on a personal level between the Socialist patriarch and his younger apprentice, and the two were separated by more than simply the gap in their ages. While Blagoev was the man of ideas, Dimitrov was making his name as an enforcer. Dimitrov was exclusively home-grown and grounded amongst the workers, as well as inherently more radical. In his actions on the ground, he was also gradually departing from Blagoev’s thinking that there was no need for ‘bombs and dynamite’. Where there was complete unanimity between them was in the belief that the ideological purity and organisational unity of the BRSDP(N) should be strictly guarded. Dimitrov’s wife too was involved in both political and syndicalist activities. She was the Secretary of the Tailors’ Union within the ORSS, and edited the professional paper. It seems that her career in the party peaked in mid-1914 when she was among the convenors of a Socialist women’s conference. 77 Yet by then she was completely overshadowed by her husband’s achievements. In the latter half of 1914, Dimitrov was a keen and frequent participant in the debates in parliament, the most energetic and eloquent of his small group. He used every occasion to dwell on the classic Socialist concerns of unemployment, increasing exploitation of workers and the rising cost of living, most of his contributions being related at length in the party newspaper. He proposed state insurance for the unemployed, and championed persistently the regulation of the labour of women and children. Dimitrov was often disruptive of the Assembly’s work as he sought to take the floor frequently and gave it up reluctantly; his speeches tended to deviate from the

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current discussion onto his preferred topics. His political adversaries – not only those from the government benches but also the other Opposition parties, the Agrarians and Broad Socialists – often accused him of exaggeration, lack of precision, and especially of repetition ad nauseam. He had no inhibition in calling his opponents ‘cruel towards . . . workers’, ‘as cold as stone towards tears and blood’ and warned them that they would ‘not have peace and calm’.78 Dimitrov campaigned for a permanent salary for deputies, arguing that this would make the Assembly more representative as it would allow people from unprivileged backgrounds to stand for election.79 One of the most quarrelsome debates, in which he engaged vigorously as a spokesperson for his parliamentary group, dealt with irregularities in the elections in the Vratsa region which he represented. Dimitrov adamantly insisted that the campaign there had been marred by verbal and physical violence – ‘disgrace for the Narrows too,’ interjected the Agrarian leader Alexandur Stamboliyski, amid a burst of laughter and whistling. Dimitrov explained that his party’s electioneering had been consistently obstructed by government-sponsored abuse and by the arrest of supporters and the dissolution of rallies. Eventually the Narrows had been forced to boycott the poll in one of the wards, and Dimitrov was convinced that this had lost them a deputy. For their part, the Broads accused the Narrows of striking a deal with the government: the details were complex, but the result had been that in one ward the Narrows gained a seat without actually winning enough votes, while in another they had given to the government a seat that was legitimately theirs. The insinuation was that all these machinations had been undertaken to the detriment of the Broads. The majority deputies laughed at Dimitrov for bringing up a non-event, as the Narrows’ final total of seats had not been affected by the alleged transposition. Simultaneously Pastuhov, elected in Vratsa on the BRSDP(B) ticket, mocked Dimitrov for being made a deputy by the very government he was now vehemently criticising. This turned into an all-out confrontation between the two, and Dimitrov found himself in the awkward position of demanding the annulment of his own mandate, should it be found to have been illegally gained. He also hit back at the Broads, branding them not only as servants of all bourgeois governments but also instruments of the foreign Russian interest in Bulgaria. At the time, Blagoev’s party considered the tsarist regime the embodiment of reaction and imperialism, while the Broads were more inclined to see Russia as the traditional patron of Bulgaria’s national interest. Significantly, during his venomous clash with Pastuhov regarding the alleged rigging of the recent vote, Dimitrov declared: ‘Our party does not aspire today . . . to take over power. We do not share this aspiration as it is not shared by any of the Social Democratic parties in Europe.’ But this was no reassurance – quite the contrary, as he continued: ‘It is known that our struggle is in principle against all bourgeois parties . . . it is a class struggle.’80 In other words, Dimitrov acknowledged that his party was relatively weak politically, while simultaneously confirming that its true goal, however distant, was revolution. Indeed, Dimitrov and his co-partisans optimistically predicted that revolution would be the outcome of the universally expected European war. Paradoxically, they used this as a warning in their effort to discourage the government from getting

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involved in the approaching conflict, which they saw as imperialist. Bulgaria’s disastrous defeat in the Second Balkan War had confirmed the party in its anti-war position, one of the few it shared with the Broads. After the July crisis of 1914, which set in motion the war machines of the major continental powers, the Narrows organised mass rallies and public meetings condemning war.81 Towards the end of 1914, when Bulgaria was subject to pressure from both the Entente Cordiale and the Central Alliance and was still deliberating whether and which one to join, Dimitrov argued ardently that involvement could have no solid rationale but would only favour egoistic capitalist interests.82 The Narrows were therefore naturally disappointed by the softening stance of a number of European Socialist parties, especially the German SPD, which had eventually succumbed to patriotic priorities after the declaration of hostilities. Blagoev personally rejected an appeal for support for the Triple Alliance from Karl Kautsky, the leading light of the Second International, whose orthodox Marxist theses the Bulgarian Narrows largely supported over Bernstein’s challenge. For the principled Blagoev, ideological integrity superseded any tactical calculations, even in a crisis of such obvious magnitude as the First World War. He even stood up to his former patron Plekhanov, who had taken to advocating the cause of the Entente and thus defending Russian tsarism. While Blagoev exchanged polemics with leading European Socialists, Dimitrov was only active in regional contacts. In early July 1915, with Blagoev and other members of the Central Committee, he took part in the Second Conference of Balkan Social Democrats in Bucharest. This was presided over by Rakovski, who was now more involved with the Romanian Social Democrats. Dimitrov supported the reinstatement of the Balkan Socialist Federation, pointing out that it should include not just the Socialist parties but also their associated trade unions ‘in the interest of proletarian unity’. However, mindful of the divisions within Bulgaria, the Conference stipulated that only one Socialist party and one trade union from each country were to be admitted to the Federation. More interestingly, in future the Federation members would be represented at international congresses by a single delegation – quite an ambitious proposition given the comparatively recent disagreements between Bulgarian and Serbian Socialists, for instance. For the moment, however, there was consensus both on the theory of class struggle and on an anti-war stance. 83 These were confirmed at the Zimmerwald Conference of the Second International in September 1915, where the Balkan Socialist Federation was for the first time represented and recognised within the international movement. The principal development at Zimmerwald was of course the emergence of the revolutionary left led by Lenin, to whose radical ideas of transforming the world war into a civil one Kolarov in particular did not subscribe. In this, the Bulgarian was acting in accordance with Blagoev’s view that Lenin’s tactics contained elements of anarchism, and the slogan of defeating one’s own government was uniquely relevant to authoritarian Russia.84 Nor did the Bulgarians back the later proposal for a new revolutionary International, confirming their moderate centrist position and showing no particular affinity with the Bolsheviks.85 It was indicative of Dimitrov’s role within the Bulgarian party that his international experience did not go beyond the Balkan region. Here, as on the domestic political scene, he was radical but

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not original; his greatest assets were his boundless energy and eloquence, his unquestioning loyalty and his organisational skills. In September 1915, just days before Bulgaria abandoned its erstwhile neutrality in the European war, the Narrow parliamentary group issued an ‘Address to the Working Class’, claiming that the conflict was dictated by imperialist and dynastic interests which should be fought through revolutionary class struggle. Even though this was in no way new or different from previous party propaganda and public statements, Dimitrov and some of his fellow deputies, although not the ageing and ill Blagoev, were court-marshalled. Dimitrov was arrested and held for about a month, but this only caused him minor inconvenience and fuelled his anti-government rhetoric. In fact, the terms of his detention were extremely lenient – he was allowed to publish newspaper articles, sign petitions and even appear several times at the deliberations of the Sofia City Council.86 However, he was prevented from taking his seat at the opening of the new session of the National Assembly, which was perhaps the main reason for his conviction. Subsequently he remained under surveillance, but on the whole his work was not obstructed. As a whole the BRSDP(N) also faced relatively little disturbance of its activities, even after the Bulgarian government finally threw in its lot with the Central Powers on 11 October 1915. Despite their preliminary, formidable resistance to war, the Broads and the Agrarians adopted an attitude of resignation once the fighting started. To an extent, they were influenced by the initial string of military successes against Serbia and the possibility of reclaiming key parts of Macedonia and Southern Dobrudja, the north-eastern corner of Bulgaria that had gone to Romania after the Second Balkan War. Such prospects had never tempted the BRSDP(N), which emerged as the only parliamentary party to vote against the war-credit bill in December 1915.87 Bulgaria’s entry into the war changed very little in the policy and practice of Dimitrov and the Narrows. Rabotnicheski Vestnik appeared regularly, actually increasing its circulation as the Bulgarian people once again faced the reality of war. In parliament Dimitrov continually pressed for state compensation for the families of casualties from the previous wars. He spoke against the lack of pension schemes and especially the suspension of labour laws due to the exceptional situation. Simultaneously, at the City Council (to which he had been elected again in May 1915) he campaigned for a comprehensive package of municipal support for workers’ families. His proposal for a moratorium on rents was implemented, but his more unusual ideas, such as free travel across the country for the unemployed who were looking for jobs, were not.88 On numerous occasions, Dimitrov spoke on the issue of the price and quality of food, blaming the Council for supporting the interests of businessmen at the expense of ordinary people. In December 1915, he boycotted the Council’s Social Security Committee as it had authorised market prices for basic foods and fuel.89 All of this was practically undistinguishable from Dimitrov’s syndicalist activities: at strikes, demonstrations and workers’ rallies he was agitating for the same demands. His tours of hotspots of unrest continued and now extended to Bulgaria’s newly acquired territories: on three occasions in April 1915, January 1918 and April 1919 he visited striking tobacco workers in Xanthi, and other places in the Aegean

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region. Dimitrov also met Socialist supporters and founded new local political cells. 90 As a parliamentary deputy, he was able to travel freely, including to the front.91 Throughout the war he repeatedly returned to the same concerns, putting forward proposals for increased state welfare and for further government intervention in the economy. Between May and October 1916 he raised a range of issues which was representative of his approach to social policy. He insisted on free municipal canteens for homeless children and on increased control of the standards for staple food; he persistently returned to a favourite pre-war topic, that of improvement in the management of the capital’s tram and street-lighting companies, as well as better conditions for their employees. He proposed that serving soldiers should continue to receive their usual salaries from their peace-time employers.92 Gradually, yet noticeably with the advance of the war, the tone of Dimitrov’s public statements grew more radical, and he was increasingly heard advocating the need to topple capitalism. As a demonstration of his Socialist anti-war and anti-imperialist stance Dimitrov led the Socialist councillors in protesting against the welcoming ceremony staged by the Sofia City Council for a German Reichstag delegation in June 1916. Similarly, in October 1917 he strongly opposed any public celebration of the visiting Kaiser Wilhelm, whom he condemned as a warmonger and as an advocate of the subjugation of the Balkans and Bulgaria to imperialism.93 Although Communist historiography later claimed that the February Revolution in Russia reinvigorated both Narrow activism and popular anti-government opposition in Bulgaria, Dimitrov and Blagoev seem to have paid little attention to it. At the May Day celebration in 1917 they mentioned the events in St Petersburg, appealing to Bulgarian workers to follow the banner of revolution. Even so, they were talking in rather general terms and it would be a great exaggeration to claim that they were contemplating an immediate seizure of power. This was confirmed by the Narrow approach to the somewhat confused Socialist conference in Stockholm later that summer: the Bulgarian representatives accepted the ideas of ‘peace without annexations and contributions’ and national self-determination, but did not endorse Lenin’s call to revolution.94 For his part, Dimitrov was once again on the road for most of the summer of 1917, meeting with party members and trade unionists from Burgas on the Black Sea to Vidin on the Danube. During one of his journeys, he quarrelled bitterly with an army officer who had ordered a wounded soldier out of a first-class compartment on the train from Veliko Turnovo to Russe. This ostensibly minor incident led to Dimitrov’s arrest and prosecution for ‘inciting mutiny’. Dimitrov’s postcards and letters to his wife show that in fact he was carrying out a rather routine and leisurely tour, intended to reassemble organisations that had fallen into disarray during the war; it was not an attempt to rally support for a challenge to the regime or even to stir domestic unrest.95 Nonetheless, the BRSDP(N) appreciated the political opportunities presented by the prolongation of the war and the deteriorating domestic situation. In late 1916, the Bulgarian army had suffered the first serious setbacks in Macedonia, while the home front experienced severe shortages of food, fuel and other essentials. Civilian unrest, including so-called ‘women’s revolts’ were increasingly frequent,

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though primarily triggered by basic economic concerns and by disgust at the deepseated corruption of government officials at all levels. Some apparently radical actions such as the formation of soviets on the Russian example were more the initiative of desperate soldiers than articulate and concerted policy by the BRSDP(N). The party did attempt to ride the wave of activism at the grassroots level and to give it political overtones, for instance calling not only for an end to the war but also to the political and economic order that had generated it. They faced intense competition from the Agrarian party, which had a staunch following among the troops at the front, the overwhelming majority of them peasant conscripts, and in the countryside, which was suffering from a shortage of men, work animals and grain.96 The October Revolution in Russia did capture Dimitrov’s imagination, and that of the whole Narrow leadership. It finally started taking Lenin seriously, hectically disseminating and discussing his writings and his tactics in the party press. Dimitrov declared himself to be a Bolshevik; what he meant was that he admired the uniquely successful takeover of power by the Russian comrades, and fully appreciated its international significance. Like the other Narrow leaders he hoped that the Bolshevik success heralded the long-awaited era of Socialist world revolution, and wondered how the Bulgarian Socialists could contribute to it. Initially, they limited themselves to public saluting of the Bolshevik Revolution, and showing solidarity with it by appealing for an end to the war on Lenin’s proposed terms of ‘a peace without reparations and annexations’.97 On 2 December 1917, Dimitrov spoke on ‘The Russian Revolution and Peace’ at a Socialist rally in Sofia that had attracted some 10,000 people. Addressing the City Council on 22 December, he praised the Bolshevik approach to ending the war, but also declared that ‘the people of Macedonia, Dobrudja, the Morava and Drama regions and the other occupied territories in the Balkans’ should be allowed self-determination.98 This was ambiguous enough – it could be interpreted as a call to the Bulgarian government to withdraw from territories it had occupied in the course of the war; however, in the context of popular Bulgarian nationalist aspirations, which had been the main motive for entering the Great War, these words sounded more like an assertion of the Bulgarian identity of the areas in question, and so an endorsement of Bulgaria’s territorial claims. Yet shortly afterwards, Dimitrov voiced utter contempt for US President Wilson’s famous ‘Fourteen Points’ of January 1918, even if they too were guided by anti-imperialism and advocated national self-determination. Dimitrov judged the person rather than the proposals, insisting that Wilson was only trying to cover up ulterior motives. He reminded his audience that Wilson represented ‘North American millionaires who made colossal profits from the European disaster’. He saw the idea for a League of Nations as an attempt to distract and deceive the people, so that war could continue and the political and economic supremacy of the bourgeoisie be preserved.99 In 1918 Dimitrov’s activity at the Sofia City Council followed a well-beaten track: he demanded better provision of food for the population and a curb on rents. He routinely raged against the inadequate services provided by the tram and electricity companies in Sofia, and especially against the exploitation of their employees and the misery in which the latter worked and lived.100 He missed no chance to criticise the

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governing National Liberal Party’s majority in the Council, protesting for instance against the mayor’s order for the installation of a private suite for the royal family in Sofia’s public baths at the expense of the taxpayers. He also resumed the attacks against the BRSDP(B), which he had recently allowed to subside, accusing it with renewed force of continued warmongering and of betraying the workers. 101 Altogether, Dimitrov’s work during the war concentrated exclusively on the home front. Meanwhile, Dimitrov’s trial by court-martial concluded in August 1918, exactly a year after the clash with the army officer on the train. He was found guilty of ‘inciting military conscripts to disobey their superiors’ and accordingly sentenced to three years of imprisonment.102 He was sent to the Sofia Central Prison, where a number of prominent political figures had been detained, primarily for opposition to the war. Among them was Kosta Todorov, an adventurer who had delivered an armistice offer by General Serrail, the commander of the Entente armies in Salonika, to the Bulgarian government. He remembered Dimitrov as ‘a large, rather handsome man with thick black hair and black beard’. However, Todorov lavished no further compliments on Dimitrov, who he heard rehearsing ‘ridiculous’ quotes from his Marxist reading and speaking to his fellow-prisoners ‘with a note of contempt in his voice’. Dimitrov did not conceal his low opinion of the most prominent prisoner, Agrarian leader Alexandur Stamboliyski, who had been incarcerated for a vicious confrontation with Tsar Ferdinand over the issue of Bulgaria’s entry into the war. Dimitrov labelled Stamboliyski a ‘petit bourgeois’ and Todorov, who boasted wide foreign connections, ‘an agent of Anglo-French imperialism’. Todorov also testified to the lenient regime for political prisoners, who could generally afford to bribe the guards and so have their cells left unlocked all day, mix freely with one another and read the local and world press. Twice-weekly ‘visits to the dentist’ were practically unsupervised.103 Ljuba, with whom Dimitrov was in daily correspondence from prison, hoped that ‘the change would do [him] good’. She managed to kit out his cell with all the comforts she could think of: a freshly cleaned floor-rug, lace bed-linen, a bowl for his yoghurt. The spell in prison had no resemblance to the ascetic privations Dimitrov had so admired in the fictional revolutionaries, like Chernyshevsky’s Rakhmetov. However, Dimitrov’s wife was going through a very hard time, running endless errands for him while at the same time renovating their house. Her relations with Dimitrov’s family had deteriorated, and she was convinced of their hatred. She was friendly with his sister Elena, but on very strained terms with his other sister Magdalena.104 This was partially the reason for her depression, although she had suffered a nervous breakdown even before Dimitrov’s imprisonment. Dimitrov felt responsible for not appreciating his wife’s misery earlier on, and admitted that it had been brought on ‘by the bitterness, hardship and dissatisfaction of the past’. By mid-September 1918 he was convinced that the worst had passed, and wrote to her enraptured with her ‘recovery and the return of our heavenly love’. He was happy that she had began arranging their ‘new nest’ by sorting out his book collection, a gesture which he believed revealed ‘the solid foundation’ of their love.105 However, this very statement might hint at the source of Ljuba’s growing personal dissatisfaction: gone were the days when she was driven by unwavering devotion to her husband’s needs and work. She was frustrated that her

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own artistic hopes and political ambitions had remained unfulfilled. Within a month another crisis broke out: Dimitrov admitted being in mortal fear that he might lose her because of her ‘sexual dissatisfaction’ at a critical moment in her life. Dimitrov was trying to reassure her that abstinence should be borne calmly as there would be other kinds of happiness in their ‘mature marriage’.106 This crisis in Dimitrov’s personal life occurred at a moment of dire political turmoil, as Bulgaria was shaken by a mutiny. In mid-September 1918, under attack by French and British armies, the Bulgarian positions at Dobro Pole had suddenly collapsed. The exhausted soldiers rebelled, and marched back to Sofia to demand the government’s resignation. Momentarily, Socialist propaganda that the war would end when the soldiers overthrew their governments seemed to be materialising. The emergency was such that the Tsar appealed to his personal enemy Stamboliyski, seeing in him the only politician able to calm down the predominantly peasant mutineers. Despite their genuine popularity, the Agrarians appreciated that at this moment of profound significance they needed political allies. In a rational move, Stamboliyski turned to the Narrow Socialists, who had consistently opposed the war, the dynasty and the Liberal government. At a party conference on 22 September, Blagoev had advised the rebels to point their guns at the rulers in Sofia. Whether Stamboliyski was aware of this or not, three days later he personally proposed to the Narrow leader that they collaborate on behalf of peasants and industrial workers. Stamboliyski laid out plans for a democratic republic, and expressed his readiness to adopt the entire BRSDP(N) programme, with the single exception of peasant expropriation. Thus, an extraordinary opportunity presented itself to the revolutionary Bulgarian Socialists: power was within their reach, against a background of unprecedented popular support as sympathy for them and the other leftist parties had naturally germinated in the long war years. But Blagoev failed to rise to the occasion, and declined the offer of coalition with the Agrarians, citing international considerations – the Entente would not tolerate a radical left government. While this was largely true, Blagoev’s real concerns were rather more ideological in nature: he rightly saw the insurrection as little more than an act of war-weariness. He further argued that the rebellious soldiers were essentially reactionary peasant-owners fighting a government representing the urban bourgeoisie, and the BRSDP(N) should not support either. Additionally, in the current disposition of political forces it was clear that the much stronger Agrarians would dominate any alliance with the Socialists. Without Blagoev’s endorsement, Stamboliyski still led the revolt, and gave it focus and political meaning. In Radomir, he declared a republic with himself as its president. This survived only a couple of days, as the soldiers were eager to return to their homes and had no desire to fight even the small force that defended the capital, especially after Bulgaria signed an armistice on 29 September 1918. 107 According to Vassil Kolarov, at the end of the world war the Narrows would not have settled for anything less than a soviet republic.108 Blagoev could only conceive of a departure from his literal interpretation of Marxist doctrine if it was based on a successful example, the only one available being the Bolshevik. Shortly afterwards, even Lenin saw the Bulgarian events as a missed chance to start a revolution across the Balkans.109

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Unlike Stamboliyski, Dimitrov remained in custody, watching the soldiers’ advance on Sofia on 28 September 1918 from the window of his cell.110 Despite his belief in revolution, he had neither the chance nor the inclination to propose a line different to Blagoev’s. Some tentative later suggestions that he favoured collaboration with Stamboliyski have no solid basis of evidence.111 Furthermore, in February 1919, speaking in the Assembly, Dimitrov himself rejected any Narrow responsibility for the events of the previous September.112 (This of course was after the failure of the rebellion.) One immediate effect of Bulgaria’s military capitulation was the abdication of Tsar Ferdinand, under pressure from the victorious powers of the Entente and from an outspoken lack of confidence among the Bulgarian political elite. After appointing a conservative caretaker government, the new Tsar Boris III also granted a general amnesty, which ironically benefited many convinced republicans.113 Prominent among those were Stamboliyski, who emerged from hiding, and Dimitrov, who was released from prison. Both of them – and their respective parties – immediately launched their bids to dominate Bulgaria’s post-war political development. Three days after gaining his freedom, on 16 December 1918, Dimitrov was interjecting speakers in the Assembly, and two days after that holding forth at the Sofia City Council on the endless subject of the tram and electricity companies. Within a week of his release, Dimitrov appeared among the miners in Pernik, his intention not just to thank those who had brought his wife coal for heating several weeks earlier. He spoke on ‘The International Situation and the Situation in the Pernik Mines’, dwelling on developments in Russia and calling on Bulgarian workers to follow the example of their Russian brethren. He admired the ‘bright light’ cast by Russia over the whole of Europe, it was soon to ‘come our way too’ as ‘we already feel its first rays’. He was arrested and conveyed back to Sofia, but not charged. Incidentally, the same day the CC of BRSDP(N) met briefly with an emissary from Lenin, although it is not certain that Dimitrov was present. Soon afterwards, an office for liaison between the BRSDP(N) and the Soviet Union was set up in Varna, which operated several small motor-boats. At the time, the channel was used for the exchange of information and of press and party literature, but it might have well been intended as a means of evading the chaos and the restrictions on communications across Eastern and Central Europe in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Great War.114 It was on their own initiative, rather than Lenin’s advice, that throughout 1919 the Bulgarian Socialists further destabilised the situation in the country. They took advantage of the post-war economic and social dislocation to stand at the head of numerous strikes; much of this unrest was sporadic and driven by food shortages and rising prices. Dimitrov was at the forefront of the BRSDP(N)’s effort to position itself at the centre of the widespread civil discontent, and to infuse it with political content. He was involved in planning, sanctioning and overseeing a number of strikes, personally directing the biggest of them. The Pernik mines, an endemic hotspot to which Dimitrov had been returning for over a decade, were on permanent alert, with strikes erupting at almost regular intervals in February, July and November 1919. The issues were familiar and widespread across the country – meagre wages, unsatisfactory

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pension provision, and extortionate prices of basic commodities. The government exacerbated the confrontation by sending in army detachments and attempting to mobilise the miners, thus standing justly accused of employing the underhand methods of its predecessors. On 18 February, in the middle of a rally in Pernik, Dimitrov was arrested together with his wife and transported to Sofia, only to be immediately released after a vocal street protest. The publicity which surrounded this incident was more than welcome for Dimitrov’s reputation as a fearless activist, and benefited the image of the Narrow party as the guiding force of the militant miners. From the party’s perspective, the industrial action created above all political momentum, and contributed to the impression of a revolutionary atmosphere. Dimitrov declared: ‘With its brutal breaking of the law the government departs from lawfulness and legality and . . . shows the workers the road towards struggle.’115 There were further reasons for the Narrows’ aggressive support for the series of strikes: on the one hand, their revolutionary credentials had been tainted by their abstention in the Soldiers’ Uprising the previous September, so they were seeking to prove themselves as the vanguard of the proletariat, and the profile of current events was highly appropriate for this. On the other hand, the political fortunes of Agrarians and Broad Socialists also improved amidst the turmoil, and they joined the post-war coalition government: in response, the Narrows needed to distinguish themselves clearly within the leftist political spectrum. Moreover, the moment was opportune for the expansion of the ORSS, which only accounted for about a fifth of almost 150,000 Bulgarian workers. Against the background of continuing urban unrest, Dimitrov was also seeking to launch another bid for the unification of the syndicate movement under the aegis of the BRSDP(N).116 In the meantime, at the City Council Dimitrov continued to raise questions over the poverty, lack of hygiene and inadequate social support for workers and their families. His proposals became visibly more extreme – and often impractical. He believed that a solution to the accommodation crisis in the capital could be found through the confiscation and distribution among the needy of spare rooms and underused property belonging to the wealthy classes; he additionally proposed that this should be done by a committee elected by the homeless and property-less people themselves. Similarly, he demanded that all equity resulting from real estate price increases be expropriated and used for regeneration of slum areas.117 Dimitrov’s participation in debates at both the City Council and the Assembly was always noisy and tumultuous. When not pontificating, he ridiculed, even threatened, other members, on several occasions almost coming to blows. He rarely observed the limits of his allocated time and usually strayed from the subject at hand into general ideological pronouncements. In September 1919 he acquired another public post, being confirmed as member of the newly-elected Sofia District Council, another arena in which he voiced the views and policies of his party.118 Undoubtedly, the defining event of 1919 for Bulgarian Socialists was the accession of the BRSDP(N) to the newly-formed Third or Communist International (Comintern), a long-standing project of Lenin’s. The Bulgarians were inscribed as founding members even though they could not send a delegation to the inaugural

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meeting in Moscow, in March 1919. They were represented by Rakovski, who also held a mandate from the Romanian Socialists and the Balkan Socialist Federation. Accordingly, the XXII Congress of the BRSDP(N) on 25–7 May subscribed to Lenin’s ‘Twenty-one Conditions’, and adopted the name of the ‘Bulgarian Communist Party’ (BKP), to which the initial (N) remained attached. The congress reported more than 22,000 members, a seven-fold increase since 1915.119 The new programme proclaimed the party’s current political task to be the takeover of power, with the goal of establishing a Socialist soviet republic. Private property would be expropriated and redistributed, a people’s militia and a ‘red army’ would be set up. All this would be achieved through ‘any legal and illegal methods’, from mass political strike to armed uprising.120 The congress, which became the first one for the BKP(N) reaffirmed Dimitrov as the member of the Central Committee with particular responsibility for the trade unions. As before, this overlapped with his position as ORSS Secretary, into which he was again voted at the syndicates’ own congress – which by tradition was held immediately after that of the party. The Narrow-associated syndicates declared support for the principles of the Third International. As the main speaker at the syndicates’ congress Dimitrov not only confirmed the view that trade-union demands were directly linked to the overall political struggle, but also proclaimed that the ultimate objective of both was the dictatorship of the proletariat. Dimitrov insisted that without its political content ‘trade-union struggle becomes ever more hopeless, it is losing its practical results’. Therefore, while it was necessary to reinvigorate the ORSS and make it a truly mass organisation, its ultimate goal could only be the total elimination of capitalist exploitation. Dimitrov argued that the Communist syndicates would facilitate the preparation of revolution by creating loyal cadres for the BKP(N) who would carry it out. Once this was achieved, he envisaged the syndicates as securing the wide social basis of proletarian rule and becoming an organ of soviet power.121 Awed by the success of the Bolsheviks and committed to the International, the newly-minted Bulgarian Communists started paying closer attention to Lenin’s writings. Dimitrov who among the members of the CC was uniquely unencumbered by previous international association, felt free to write that the Bulgarian Communists were in full agreement with Lenin. 122 He also sought to identify personally with the Soviet leader’s ideas: immediately after the congress he produced the Bulgarian introduction to Lenin’s Letters to the Workers of Europe and America.123 In mid-1919, the Bulgarian Communist leaders were convinced that the economic prerequisites for revolution were present in the country. Accordingly, they set out to create the necessary political conditions by increasing anti-government agitation and asserting the role of the Communist party at the forefront of the workers’ protests. In late June 1919 Dimitrov met with workers in several industrial towns, calling on them to fight against economic exploitation and political suppression. The advice was swiftly heeded by the Pernik miners, amongst whom earlier tensions had barely subsided and who went on strike again. Dimitrov was also once again addressing their rallies and negotiating on their behalf.

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The Communists also sought to affirm their internationalist credentials by mobilising support not only for the Russian Revolution but also for the Hungarian Soviet Republic proclaimed the previous March. This was one of the slogans under which Dimitrov led a demonstration in the Sofia working-class district of Konyovitsa on 27 July. He gave a much applauded speech in which he summoned the proletariat to the fight, and which exhilarated the unruly and volatile crowd to such an extent that it provoked an armed assault by mounted police. Escaping unharmed, Dimitrov moved to the next poor neighbourhood, where he addressed a second rally in an equally aggressive manner. Unconcerned with his personal safety he revelled in stirring revolutionary unrest; any casualties among the demonstrators would be blamed on the government’s use of force and would in any case reinforce the allegations of reactionary violence and oppression by the agents of the bourgeoisie. He also seized the opportunity to lash out at his personal Broad adversary Pastuhov, now the Interior Minister in charge of the police who clashed with the protestors.124 Dimitrov’s words and actions were governed at this juncture by the logic that the further the situation deteriorated the better the party’s political purposes would be served. This was also obvious from the persistent encouragement he had given to Sofia’s homeless to confront the authorities. In July, in a Council debate on the urban homeless and poor he claimed: ‘We would either go to the gallows or triumph.’ 125 In August, three homeless men died during a mob’s attempt to seize plots of municipal land on the outskirts of the city on which to build houses. Dimitrov, who had visited one of the victims in hospital, claimed that the man’s dying wish was that his comrades should unite under the Communists and fight the Broads; this was curiously reminiscent of a speech Dimitrov himself had recently made. 126 Even Blagoev expressed disquiet at such militancy, while the only other Communist leader of Dimitrov’s radical disposition was Kolarov. Communist-led disturbances precipitated a forceful response from the government, which soon led to a vicious circle of violence. Ostensibly, revolutionary behaviour was reaping results, as the general election on 17 August 1919 registered 120,000 votes (or 18 per cent) for the BKP(N), which returned 47 deputies, the largest number ever gained by the Narrows in a free vote. The Communists emerged as the second largest parliamentary party, second only to the Agrarians,127 and were equally successful in local elections at the end of year. It was precisely this popularity in the aftermath of the wars that confirmed the conviction – held in common with other European Communists – that the whole continent was experiencing a revolutionary situation. This in turn revalidated the Communists’ long-held policy of no political compromise with bourgeois parties – which was how they viewed all the other Bulgarian parties. As a result, Blagoev, who believed that power should be acquired as the outcome of revolutionary struggle and not political bargaining, refused to negotiate with the Agrarians on forming the new government. When Stamboliyski came to power in October 1919 and signed the restricting Neuilly Peace Treaty in late November, the Communists – although never moved by Bulgaria’s nationalist ideals – seized on the prevailing popular feelings of frustration to add to their arsenal of accusations against the government.128

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Witnessing no less than 135 strikes in 1919, involving 80,000 workers, raised the Communists’ confidence, and while they ultimately predicted a revolution, they also continued to press for immediate social and economic reforms. 129 At the end of December 1919 they supported demands for increasing the wages of civil servants, a vast category which covered, for instance, teachers and transport workers. The Broad Social Democrats led a parallel campaign among these groups where they had a strong following. The two leftist parties did not use this as an opportunity for a common effort but, on the contrary, as one for an escalation of their competition. The Communists, and Dimitrov in particular, sought to flex their revolutionary muscle. On 15 December the CC had issued an appeal for anti-government protests, and on 21 December Dimitrov spoke at a public meeting on ‘The Treason and Criminal Carelessness of the Government towards the Needs of the Working Masses’. The police attacked and a bomb exploded in the crowd, but far from deterring the demonstrators this seemed to antagonise them further, and they were again out in the streets three days later. The two parties staged concurrent but separate protest marches, with the army put on alert across the capital. While the Social Democrat event was relatively orderly, the Communist one was more emotional and uncontrollable, as it also marked the funeral of three casualties from the previous disturbances. It raised demands for ‘bread, coal, houses and clothing for the people’ and for the restoration of political freedoms. Dimitrov led the protesters against the police cordons, and more bloodshed occurred. After this, he and Kolarov went underground when an order for their arrest was issued.130 Political passions escalated in an unprecedented fashion as between 29 December and 3 January 1920 the country witnessed its first general strike, which was also the first joint endeavour of both Socialist parties. The government responded by sacking the participating civil servants, which in turn precipitated a second strike of transport workers, again with the continued support of the Broads. The ongoing civil disobedience in the towns encompassed blue- and white-collar workers, pensioners and even lower-army ranks. It was driven by their declining real incomes, 131 though the effect of the persistent and radical Communist propaganda and activism cannot be ignored. Sensing a rare opportunity Dimitrov stood at the helm of what became a real display of political power. The so-called ‘Transport Strike’ lasted for a record period of over six weeks, into the second half of February 1920. However, its high point turned out to be its declaration – a stalemate was quickly reached as Stamboliyski held firm; Dimitrov became aware that the government perceived and treated the strike as an attempted revolution. Indeed, a week into the stoppage the Communists were reconsidering whether it was beneficial to them in view of the severe government response, but were not yet prepared to call it off empty-handed. And although the Communists protested vocally against the authorities’ persecution of their supporters, they found it possible to convene a Balkan conference on 15 January 1920, in the very middle of the Transport Strike. In tune with recent international changes, the Balkan Socialist Federation was transformed into the Balkan Communist Federation (BKF) and declared itself a part of the Comintern.132

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A sign that Dimitrov was using the strike for maximum enhancement of his image was that he seemed to remain in hiding longer than necessary, Kolarov having returned home weeks earlier. This might have been related to his plan for a surprise appearance at a session of the City Council, while it debated the fate of clerks who had participated in the recent troubles. Dimitrov made a dramatic entrance into the Council chamber, spoke for about ten minutes and left, thereafter claiming that he had single-handedly saved the livelihoods of 400 civil servants.133 However, the notion of Dimitrov’s selfless heroism is questioned in Kosta Todorov’s memoirs – subjective and self-serving as they are. Todorov, who was at the time a cabinet minister claimed that Dimitrov’s wife visited him at his home and pleaded with him to help get the order for Dimitrov’s arrest revoked on medical grounds. When this was passed to Stamboliyski, he insisted that Dimitrov should personally call on Todorov. However, nothing but a very awkward interview took place, as Dimitrov stated that his wife had acted without his approval and refused to add his own appeal to hers, citing his parliamentary immunity. To Todorov’s remark that the victors could afford to be merciful, Dimitrov retorted that ‘this was only the first skirmish’.134 While Todorov’s account is not borne out by other sources, the correspondence between Dimitrov and Ljuba shows that they experienced another spell of personal difficulties during the strike. While she looked forward to seeing him in his various hiding places and providing him with whatever small comforts she could, such as home-made sweets, she was obviously frightened and confused by the dramatic turn of events. She started to suffer from heart and nerves complaints, and she soon fell into another bout of depression. Dimitrov’s excessive self-dramatisation did not help – he even sent his wife a cipher for future communications, insisting on her learning it urgently.135 Their relationship entered a crisis, with Ljuba expressing doubts about his need for her care and love. She now wished to emigrate, which he would consider only in extremis. Dimitrov had to reassure her profusely that her ‘crystal love’ was his only moral support and losing that would be worse than losing his head.136 Dimitrov called the Transport Strike ‘the most wonderful act of . . . proletarian solidarity’. Prone to verbal exaggerations, he predicted that such ‘grandiose epochal class struggle opened the gates for the future Bolshevik revolution in Bulgaria’. Propaganda aside, he understood that to carry on meant to challenge a government which had a solid social basis among the Bulgarian peasantry, by far the largest section of the population.137 This would mean civil war, for which clearly neither domestic nor international conditions were right. Indeed, the momentum of the post-war period had now passed, as exemplified by the failed revolutionary attempts in Hungary and Bavaria. In Dimitrov’s view, having clearly made a significant impact by the very fact of the strike, the Communists should ‘retreat in an organised manner’ so as to preserve both their credibility and support. This also applied to his personal interests as a political leader. His central role during the previous year of unprecedented political turbulence was determined by both ideological conviction and by the desire for further prominence at the forefront of the BKP(N); he had exploited the opportunity afforded by Blagoev’s advanced age and evident aloofness from the events. Indeed, shortly after

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the Transport Strike Blagoev privately expressed the view that Dimitrov’s and Kolarov’s aggressiveness and thoughtless lack of compromise brought unnecessary hardship to the workers.138 Yet nothing was done to stop them, and the younger leaders’ radicalism was allowed to dictate the course of the party. Where Dimitrov’s ideological and political preferences lay is obvious from his view expressed in mid-February that the choices were between the end of the strike and an armed uprising. While acknowledging that the latter option was unrealistic, he saw this as a tragedy for the party; nevertheless, he was certain that the time for armed struggle would come.139 In a further display of optimism, and of a high level of skill in positive spin, the moment the strike was wound up Dimitrov started claiming that it had been a moral victory which strengthened the party and the ORSS. In need of legitimising his stance, he began describing the Transport Strike as a turning point in the unleashing of class struggle in Bulgaria. Almost intuitively, he used it as a myth demonstrating the dedication of the working class and the farsightedness of its leaders. Unsurprisingly, he blamed the actual defeat on betrayal by the Broads. Just out of hiding, Dimitrov stood in the new parliamentary elections on 28 March 1920. In a turbulent campaign, the Communists put up slogans against all bourgeois parties and clashed with the Agrarians, their main political competitors.140 They succeeded in increasing their share of the vote to over 20 per cent and 51 deputies – results they proclaimed indicated ‘the mighty advance of the revolutionary Communist movement of the Bulgarian proletariat’. Their strength was indirectly confirmed by Stamboliyski’s forceful measures: to secure the majority that evaded him at the polls, he cancelled 13 mandates, citing technical irregularities – nine of the lost seats had been won by the Communists.141 Most of the expelled deputies were from the Vratsa region, where Dimitrov’s own constituency was and where, according to the government, most of the irregularities had taken place. However, Dimitrov’s seat was preserved, probably because the government was wary of challenging such a high-profile politician. On 27 April 1920, he made an important speech maintaining the elections had been corrupt and undemocratic. He stated that the vote had openly juxtaposed Agrarians and Communists, but was certain that the BZNS would soon turn out to be but a dwarf, not the colossus it appeared. This immediately provoked heated verbal skirmishes among the parliamentary benches, a predictable effect of Dimitrov’s presentations.142 Soon he settled into a familiar routine, dividing his time between the Assembly, the City Council and the trade unions. He also assumed the role of a lecturer at the party school, mostly on the syndicalist movement, of which he was a kind of living history. He was now reflecting ‘academically’ on his political journey from a printer’s apprenticeship to the leadership of a national organisation, a role to which he was well-suited: he clearly enjoyed his own oratorical performances and was a most popular hands-on politician who could inspire young radicals.143 And yet, by June 1920 even Dimitrov was advocating caution: he argued that energy should not be wasted on unpredictable strikes but instead focused exclusively on the issue of political power.144 Indeed, despite the recent disappointments, the Communists were preparing for even more serious battle.

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Already, at the end of the war, regional cells had received an order to collect and store the weapons which many veterans retained. For instance, Todor Lukanov, Secretary of the Communist organisation in the Pleven region in northern Bulgaria, briefed selected members that they should obtain weapons in any way they could – buying or ‘appropriating’. He explained that this was necessary because – just like the Bolsheviks – the Bulgarian Communists would also ‘pose the question of power’. Additionally, through a fictitious company based in the port of Burgas for three years after May 1920, the BKP(N) had at its disposal a Russian boat used for transporting people and arms.145 It is not clear why this boat was not available to Dimitrov, Kolarov and several others in their attempt to reach Soviet Russia as delegates to the Second Congress of the Comintern. Instead they embarked on a journey, the details of which remained equally farcical despite many subsequent attempts by party historians and biographers to present it in a more serious light.146 In the final days of June 1920, the official BKP(N) delegation set off from Varna in a hired sailing boat, crewed by three Romanian army deserters who had fled to Bulgaria. Apparently, the chosen mode of transport did not appear ridiculous in view of the distance it had to cover: similar vessels had been used before for smuggling literature and possibly arms. 147 The travellers carried substantial sums of different currencies and issues of Communist periodicals. Kolarov admitted that early on the boat strayed off course as everyone on board fell asleep, but he insisted that while the sailors were drunk their passengers were simply exhausted.148 It then took four days to get to Lake Razelm in the Danube delta, where they were apprehended by a Romanian military patrol on 3 July 1920. The story of how and why this happened subsequently changed a number of times, referring in turn to strong winds, the need to get drinking water or simply navigational errors. Faced with a Romanian court-martial, the Bulgarian Communists revealed their full identities and did not hide their destination. During his interrogation, Dimitrov produced some bizarre details of his life, stating that he had been christened into Bulgarian Orthodox Christianity, had served with the First Infantry Division of the Bulgarian army and, most curiously, had two sons named Ivan and Todor. After 20 days under arrest, they were taken to the Bulgarian frontier and banned from entering Romania; for Dimitrov this was the third such occasion.149 Upon his return he was shocked to find out that Ljuba had left the country, presumably to Serbia. He made several attempts to contact her through the Serbian Communists; these letters spoke of Dimitrov’s personal tragedy as he repeated that his wife was absolutely vital for his existence. Yet he wrote that he understood her dissatisfaction with their way of life; perhaps hinting at some recent domestic disagreement, he explained that he would be able to support her better from then on as his parliamentary allowance had been increased and he had taken out loans. He resigned himself to the separation and hoped it would enable her to develop her talent and to participate in the political struggle in her own right; he would not egoistically claim her back.150 Still without news of Ljuba, Dimitrov came across her work in the Serbian paper Budushnost (‘Future’). She had published a short story about the different ways poor

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and wealthy children experience the first winter snow: only the latter could enjoy it but their whole world was soon to end. A poem entitled ‘Mother’s Curse’ spoke of the children who died from hunger, prostitution and war. Dimitrov was full of praise; he was convinced his wife’s artistic talent had been revived and she would blossom into a true proletarian poetess.151 Two months after her departure, Dimitrov’s wife contacted him. In the meantime, she had taken part in the Vukovar congress which established the Serbian Communist Party, and had delivered a speech praising Bolshevism and the Comintern. 152 She was also working in Belgrade, a detail that hurt Dimitrov, as it implied his support was inadequate or unwanted. He rushed to say she should feel free to live as she wanted while he would fulfil his love by helping her.153 Dimitrov continued to repeat he could never ask her to return to conditions which depressed her. He felt responsible for all her sorrows and obliged to let her follow her desires.154 In November 1920 Ljuba returned – only to be immediately submerged in the vortex of Dimitrov’s political activity. Her own involvement with Communist women led to further blows to her confidence – she was sensitive towards what she believed was the negative personal attitude of her comrades. But more importantly, the tension between the marriage and the political work re-emerged. While for instance Ljuba appreciated Dimitrov’s guidance on a talk she was preparing, she was protective and possessive of him. She opened a letter to him from a young woman which caused her bitter jealousy, even though Dimitrov insisted it had been pure pleasantry. 155 Soon her depression returned: she was often overcome by copious tears and felt ‘deeply tormented’.156 Early in November Dimitrov presided over a Balkan-Danubian trade-union conference. He was eager that following a directive of the international trade-union centre in Moscow, the Communist-dominated trade unions from each country in the region should join together in a Balkan Trade Union Federation, which mirrored the BKF. Unsurprisingly, the new body affirmed it would seek a revolutionary route to power, aim for dictatorship of the proletariat and subordinate syndicalism to party activities. A secretariat was established in Sofia, and Dimitrov became its chairman.157 The Bulgarian Communists celebrated the third anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in a flamboyant manner. On 7 November 1920, Dimitrov delivered a speech ‘In Honour and Defence of Brotherly Russia’, addressing a large crowd outside the BKP(N) headquarters in Sofia. This ended in shooting and arrests, and Dimitrov (who escaped) was accused by the authorities of inciting riots and attempted murder. He went into hiding, refusing to be arrested and stand trial. 158 The fragile Ljuba had to deal with searches of their house and to answer police questioning. A week after the incident, the Bulgarian CC decided to send Dimitrov to Moscow. Ostensibly, the reason for this was participation in the international trade-union conference, yet the underlying motive might have been a desire to detach him from the Bulgarian political scene for a while. Dimitrov immediately started readying himself for travel, but the logistical planning turned out to be long and tortuous as different routes and identities were tried out; at one point, the possibility of travelling through Persia was discussed. It was more likely, however, that he would have to go via Vienna and possibly Berlin,

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and it was agreed that his wife would accompany him. Dimitrov believed this was a good moment to travel together, and assured Ljuba they could live comfortably and even entertain on the salary of a Bulgarian deputy. In early December 1920 the couple began putting their affairs in order in preparation for a journey abroad.159 To his wife’s unspeakable disappointment, Dimitrov finally left Bulgaria alone, at the very end of December 1920. By New Year’s Day he was installed in Vienna after a safe trip on which he had spent ‘many French francs’. Life in Vienna instantly proved both pleasant and affordable if one possessed Bulgarian currency. Dimitrov twice visited the opera, and was looking forward to meeting Ljuba, who was now supposed to arrive separately and for whom Dimitrov was apparently planning a shopping spree: she arrived in Vienna in the final week of January. As the Moscow conference was postponed until the spring, Dimitrov made a leisurely visit to Italy, on his own, where he also attended the congress of the Italian Socialist Party in Livorno. 160 There another member of the Bulgarian CC, Hristo Kabakchiev, was the official representative of the Comintern and took part in the debates, encouraging a split in the Italian Socialists and the establishment of an Italian Communist Party. Three months earlier Kabakchiev had accompanied Zinoviev to the Halle congress of the German Socialist Party, which had also split.161 But Dimitrov was present in a private capacity, and hardly anyone noticed him; however, he probably gained insight into how to manage large and significant debates. Finally, in late February 1921 Dimitrov arrived in Soviet Russia for the first time. He managed to obtain an interview with Lenin, where he went on at some length about the successes of the revolutionary forces in Bulgaria, claiming that the BKP(N) was ready to take over power. Lenin briefly and soberly advised that the Bulgarian Communists should not ‘overdo it as the reactionary forces are still strong’.162 Dimitrov stayed in Moscow until the final week of August. He attended meetings of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), published numerous articles on the syndicalist movement in Pravda, and addressed the congress of the All-Russia Trade Unions. He also attended the Third Congress of the Comintern, which preceded the founding congress of the Red Trade Union International (Profintern). Dimitrov had taken an active part in the preparation of various documents later discussed during the proceedings, and also in the agenda of various working committees. He was elected a member of the Executive Committee of the Profintern. His speech on behalf of the Bulgarian delegation summed up the trends in the Bulgarian movement: ‘old doctrinaires’ who opposed the Profintern for its political priorities, ‘syndicalists’ who only allowed occasional cooperation with it, and true Communists. From this perspective, he even criticised the German Socialists for empty romanticism and meaningless phraseology. He believed that the Profintern would speed up the triumph of the workers, but as the trade unions could not carry out the revolution, the two Internationals needed to struggle in unity.163 Dimitrov returned to Bulgaria on 26 November 1921. He was almost immediately arrested, only to be taken by the police to the parliament building and released. The following day he regaled a crowd of Communists with stories of Russia. He also immediately joined in the activities of the current ‘red trade-union week’ of

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propaganda and recruitment. Amazingly, after over a year of absence, Dimitrov seamlessly resumed his seat in the Sofia City Council picking up his old subjects for debate almost where he had left them.164 His old roles came back with ease, but he now performed them with the added authority of one who had been in the real heartland of Socialism.

2 REVOLT AND RETREAT, 1922–32

In November 1921 Georgi Dimitrov returned to Bulgaria full of enthusiasm, and eagerly resumed his political career. His prestige in Communist circles had grown further, due to the fact that he had lived in Soviet Russia and learned from its example. Dimo Kazasov (a journalist and politician who had skipped across the political spectrum in the inter-war period, so not an entirely impartial observer) gave a vivid impression of Dimitrov’s personality in the early 1920s. He likened Dimitrov to ‘a whirlwind’, with his rebellious speeches, delivered in dominating tones and accompanied by profuse gesticulation, with his sharp and sarcastic way of arguing and with his invariable place in the front line of street events, ready to clash physically with opponents.1 Dimitrov’s defiance and natural confidence combined with his abilities to project competence: he overwhelmed his audience with facts and figures during debates. All of this made him the crowd’s favourite.

* * * Meanwhile, relations between the BKP(N) and the ruling BZNS continued to worsen in the wake of the Transport Strike. As the Communists repeatedly performed well in local elections, the Agrarians felt threatened in their natural domain, the countryside. When in October 1920 the Communists won control of 65 village councils, the government used its administrative power to declare the vote null and void, citing irregularities. In the repeat local elections the following year the Communists were numerically less successful but gained new prominence in important city councils, such as those in the seaports of Varna and Burgas as well as in Samokov.2 The Communists themselves attributed their achievements to their revolutionary ideology, which they believed corresponded closely to the unfolding general crisis of capitalism. Their increased local representation was coupled with relentless propaganda: in August 1921, for instance, a leaflet on the housing crisis claimed it could only be solved by demolishing the power of the bourgeoisie and transferring property to the working people.3 Political tensions also grew as a result of the Agrarians’ radicalism in both domestic and foreign policy. Having secured a majority in the Assembly and formed a singleparty cabinet, Stamboliyski set out to implement his vision of the supreme role of the peasantry, as the fundamental creative force of society, in every sphere of life. To this effect he introduced a range of legislative and economic reforms aimed at more equal land distribution and the elimination of middlemen, who he believed exploited peasants. His most controversial domestic measure was the setting-up of a compulsory labour service, for both men and women, to work on large infrastructure or industrial

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projects. In foreign relations, Stamboliyski’s rule was defined by the search for compromise and stability after the devastating and ultimately futile period of the wars. He secured Bulgarian membership of the League of Nations, the first among the defeated states. However, his rapprochement with Serbia – now enlarged to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – was the most divisive of his actions, antagonising the powerful Macedonian irredentist movement in Bulgaria. The BKP(N)’s attitude to the Agrarian government was far from simple and straightforward. In principle, the Communists supported policies benefiting smallholders and restricting large land-owners, yet they vehemently criticised the underlying anti-urban and anti-industrial philosophy, and were more than sceptical of the actual results. Moreover, the principal Communist supporters, such as factory workers and the urban lower-middle classes, were adversely affected by the inflation, wide-spread corruption in the administration and ample use of violence by the authorities against signs of civil discontent.4 As the BZNS was tacitly recognised as an anti-capitalist force which mirrored the outlook and aspirations of large sections of the population, the Narrows rightly feared for their own more volatile elements. Ultimately, the animosity between the two leftist parties was grounded in their direct rivalry for the support of the labouring classes. Although Blagoev’s followers had unwaveringly persevered with their vision of a purely proletarian party, the general polarisation of Bulgarian politics in the aftermath of the wars meant that they had succeeded in attracting political sympathy outside their core areas. Finally, the Communists’ stance towards the Agrarian government was influenced by political developments to the right of centre. In particular, the BKP(N) was much exercised by the presence of General Wrangel’s ‘White Army’ of approximately 36,000 officers and men who had entered Bulgaria after defeat in the Russian Civil War. The Communists naturally opposed the admittance of such outspoken and, above all, armed anti-Bolshevik elements, suspecting them of conspiring with extreme right-wing Bulgarians to bring about ‘a restoration’ of the pre-war regime. It was the Communists’ uncertainty as to whether the Agrarians or the latter’s bourgeois adversaries were the bigger evil that complicated their thinking and actions. In March 1922, the Communists stepped up pressure on the government to deal with the White Russians by publicising documents pointing to the latter’s engagement in a military-political plot. As Stamboliyski and Wrangel exchanged threats, the BKP(N) campaigned against Wrangel’s alleged plan to impose a military dictatorship in Bulgaria. On 31 March 1922 Dimitrov spoke at a rally protesting at the government’s passivity, and also calling for the establishment of diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia.5 The line taken by the Communists pitched them equally against the Agrarians and the right wing; the fact that the Central Committee of the BKP(N) had resolved to back Stamboliyski in the event of a challenge involving the use of force was not announced publicly. Indeed, the Communists would only offer practical cooperation, and did not even desist from anti-government propaganda. Further evidence of the complex mutual positions of Agrarians and Communists was provided by their contacts on the eve of an ugly incident on 17 September 1922 at Dolni Dubnik railway station, where the BZNS paramilitary Orange Guard violently attacked well-known centrist and rightist political

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activists on their way to an Opposition meeting. As the confrontation had been planned, and indeed expected after a build-up in the press and the Assembly, on behalf of his party Kolarov proffered support to the Agrarian government. He asked the Minister of the Interior Raiko Daskalov to distribute arms to Communist workers so they could counter the suspected right-wing coup. Daskalov famously replied that indeed he would call on the Communists if and when he believed a coup was impending – he would give them some 15 minutes’ notice.6 The Communists’ secret decisions and their proposals for limited backing of the government were far from sufficient to alleviate Stamboliyski’s distrust of them. Moreover, the Prime Minister had good reason to doubt the Communists’ real intentions, as in June 1922 the BKP(N)’s annual congress announced a strategy of ‘prising peasants out of the grip of the Agrarian Union’. This stood distinctly at odds with the Narrows’ erstwhile rhetoric and their firm stance against any notion of making common cause with non-proletarian agents. This was a position adopted after filtering down from the Comintern, which had begun paying special attention to peasants in order to bring them into a so-called ‘united front of the working classes’. However, in November 1922, the Comintern’s Fourth Congress confirmed this position, arguing that the aim of such a united front would be a government of workers and peasants, itself a step on the road to a dictatorship of the proletariat. The congress directed the brotherly Communist parties to conclude temporary accords with peasant parties.7 For the three years since Stamboliyski’s assumption of power the Communists had branded him as the representative of wealthy peasant-owners rather than having poor peasants’ interests at heart. The Comintern’s new orientation juxtaposed these longheld beliefs and the actions the BKP(N) was now required to undertake as a loyal member of the International. This was so intolerable that the Bulgarian Communists pleaded with the Comintern to be granted a temporary exception, as they were convinced that a political showdown was approaching in Bulgaria. As this measure was not forthcoming, on 22 January 1923 the BKP(N) leadership attempted to reconcile its views with those of the Comintern. On the one hand, it formally adopted the strategy of a government of workers and peasants; on the other, it declared that such a goal could only be achieved through cooperation with poor and middle-wealth peasants,8 thus excluding the BZNS due to its alleged kulak outlook. Dimitrov, who had attended the Comintern congress and voted for its resolutions, now fully supported this new and divergent line. In any event, he continued his work among the workers, focusing his efforts on attracting the politically neutral and nonorganised among them to the party and its trade unions. Then in the first months of 1923 he was exclusively engrossed in the campaign for the forthcoming general elections. The vote on 22 April 1923 returned an overall Agrarian majority, secured not without the help of electoral changes bringing back single-member constituencies. The poll had been preceded by open fighting between government forces and the increasingly aggressive Macedonian organisation, the VMRO, and by Agrarian repression of the opposition both on the left and the right. Rabotnicheski Vestnik had

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called the Stamboliyski regime ‘a bloody dictatorship’ and appealed for its removal – not through elections, which were in any case rigged, but through ‘a world proletarian liberating revolution’.9 In turn, the government’s brutal measures against the Communists seemed to be justified by the seizure of a Russian ship carrying arms to Varna and the knowledge that the Communists were building their own underground military organisation, which even penetrated the regular army. The BKP(N) received strong electoral support, of over 19 per cent, but gained only 16 deputies, two fewer than it had had before the poll; Dimitrov’s seat, however, was safe. After the elections the Communists continued to raise the alarm about the dangers of the extreme right, which they had recently begun to label as ‘fascist’. They also had a more than adequate sense of the undercurrents in the army, one of the great losers in Bulgarian society as a result of the restrictive Neuilly Treaty and Stamboliyski’s improvement of neighbourly relations. When on 9 June 1923 a military coup d’état overthrew the government and the Agrarian leader was brutally murdered a few days later, the Communists appeared neither surprised nor shocked. In fact, they organised trucks in Sofia from which messengers appealed for calm and restraint. The Communist newspaper was the only party daily that came out on the morning of the coup; it already contained a proclamation of the events, which reminded readers that Stamboliyski had ruled by coercion and terror. As it would not have been technically possible to insert this material in the newspaper at the last minute, there was a strong implication of foreknowledge. The view of the Communist leadership was that the BZNS government had stood for the rural bourgeoisie, and had been overthrown by agents of the urban bourgeoisie: workers and poor peasants should stay well away from a clash which did not really concern them. Moreover, a telegram signed by CC member Todor Lukanov specifically instructed regional Communist organisations to desist from involvement with the initial, sporadic Agrarian resistance to the coup. Once the new government settled down, it treated the Communists with respect, even adopting measures that brought financial benefits for Communist-dominated local councils.10 Later Kolarov also claimed that Russian intelligence had advised that the coup posed no danger for the BKP(N).11 The coup against Stamboliyski was carried out by a powerful combination of Macedonian extremists and two recently-formed organisations differing in membership but with a similar nationalist outlook, namely the Military League, which included discontented officers, and the Naroden Sgovor (‘National Alliance’), an exclusive group of mostly academics and professionals. They were at least tacitly supported by the young Boris III, who could then do little but agree to the appointment of the conspirators’ choice for Prime Minister, Alexandur Tsankov, a Professor of Economics. The new government dealt quickly with the resistance put up by peasants in several regions. Although Stamboliyski’s supporters were numerous, they were ill-equipped, uncoordinated and practically leaderless, as many prominent Agrarians had been arrested or killed during and shortly after the coup. The few local Communist leaders, such as those in Pleven in northern Bulgaria, who impulsively acted in favour of the deposed Agrarians, were soon dissuaded and disorientated by the directives of the CC.12

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Tsankov was able to forge a tactical coalition of rightist and centre-right elements in the Assembly. His first steps, somewhat unexpectedly, confirmed and extended many of the previous policies: he continued with land redistribution and showed benevolence to the co-operative movement; he raised salaries and social benefits and even restored to work some of the civil servants that had been sacked by the Agrarians in the turbulent period surrounding the Transport Strike of 1919–20.13 Dimitrov was convinced that the downfall of Stamboliyski was a positive development which the workers had met with relief. He favoured the tactic of neutrality over the coup and was interested – like the rest of the CC – in the immediate practical results rather than the supposed search for cooperation between workers and peasants, which the BKP(N) had never really adopted. Indeed, the BKP(N) had chosen to interpret the united-front tactic advocated by the Comintern in the past year purely as a rhetorical means of weaning peasants away from the BZNS. Moreover, the removal of the Agrarians opened opportunities for the Communists, automatically making them the biggest single parliamentary party, and there was hope that their number of seats might even increase in future elections.14 However, the BKP(N)’s calculations failed to interest the Comintern. On 12 June 1923 the Executive Committee of the Communist International gathered at a plenum to review the dealings of the European Communist parties towards peasants. The prevalent view was that across the board the Communists were displaying narrowmindedness and failing to make sufficient efforts to unite with peasants. Against this background, the news from Bulgaria came as confirmation of this practice; it was both timely and disappointing. The Comintern leaders were staggered by the Bulgarian Communists’ undisguised deviation from clearly-defined policy, and by their inability to recognise the obvious similarity with the Kornilov Putsch a failed attempt by Russian army officers to seize power, throughout which the Bolsheviks had firmly supported the incumbent Provisional government.15 On 14 June Kolarov, at the time Secretary-General of the Comintern, telegraphed the Bulgarian CC to insist on behalf of the ECCI that instead of hindering resistance to the new government, the Communists should take decisive action against it, ‘even with Stamboliyski’.16 Simultaneously, at the Comintern, Kolarov tried to give a positive spin to his copartisans’ tactic, claiming that since they were not defeated they would be able to fight for the joint rule of workers and peasants. He was also convinced that what was missing in Sofia was the right leadership, a situation the ECCI immediately addressed on 17 June by sending him back there. Additionally, a group of Bulgarians were given a wireless transmitter and weapons and transported to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast in a motor boat, although it is not clear whether they travelled with Kolarov. On 24 June he was arrested by the Bulgarian authorities in Varna.17 In the meantime, Karl Radek, a member of the ECCI, presented it with a more thorough report on developments in Bulgaria: he was scathing about the Bulgarian Communists, to the extent of hinting they should be purged for inflicting the greatest defeat ever on a Communist party. On 29 June, Stalin, who increasingly participated in the work of the Russian representation at the ECCI, contended that the BKP(N) leaders should be punished so as to avoid a precedent for disobeying the Comintern. 18

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Accordingly, the ECCI called upon the BKP(N) to perform a swift U-turn and begin ‘fighting fascism’.19 The ECCI refused to acknowledge a fait accompli, apparently believing that through sheer will-power and by obedience to Moscow, the Bulgarian party could recapture the initiative and reshape events. On 2 and 5 July two more letters from Moscow instructed the BKP(N) to start covertly preparing, together with the Agrarians, for an armed uprising.20 However, the Bulgarian Communist leaders were unimpressed, and actively resisted the pressure for over a month, citing not only lack of resources but – crucially – lack of a revolutionary situation. Kabakchiev, the party theoretician, forwarded this analysis in answer to Radek and Grigory Zinoviev, the Chairman of the ECCI. Kabakchiev believed that the elimination of the BZNS from the political scene and the fact that the party was remarkably intact, united and strong would encourage all working classes to rally around the BKP(N): the peasants simply had no other choice. Such logic illuminated the BKP(N)’s understanding of how they could achieve the Comintern prescriptions for a united front. Additionally, Kabakchiev refuted the parallel with the Kornilov affair, but also allowed for an exit strategy by noting that should the ECCI reaffirm its position, the Bulgarians would obey as loyal members of the Comintern. Nevertheless, he warned that a reversal would threaten the unity of the Bulgarian Communists. The ECCI’s response was brutal, accusing the Bulgarian leadership of acquiring a taste for the material benefits of the party’s legal existence and therefore unwilling to risk a revolution.21 The BKP(N) was among the best organised and most loyal of the Comintern members, and Dimitrov was one of its most energetic and dedicated leaders – certainly the most radically minded in the CC. By his unfailing instigation of and participation in strikes and demonstrations he had proven that he was not anxious about exposing his followers to danger and violence. He had also declared himself to be a Bolshevik in the sense of actively propagating revolution and of leading the struggle of proletarians for power. However, in line with the rest of Blagoev’s followers he was conscious of the political cost of assuming power: cooperation with non-proletarian formations was unacceptable. Parliamentary representation on the other hand was perceived as a platform for further agitation and for gaining some practical results, until the conditions for revolution were right. That is why, until the middle of August 1923, Dimitrov never openly dissented from the BKP(N)’s official line, of neutrality in the conflict between the Agrarians and their right-wing enemies. Neither did he express any particular opinion in the debate between the ECCI and the Bulgarian CC. Ironically, the ECCI and Kolarov personally benefited from this neutrality, as the Communist CC appealed to the new Prime Minister, Tsankov, to free Kolarov – which was granted. On 24 July 1923 Dimitrov and his wife travelled to Varna to meet Kolarov and accompany him on the journey to Sofia.22 This can be pinpointed as the moment when Dimitrov changed his views on the June events and the course that now needed to be followed. His conversion was pivotal for the whole CC, and understanding its motives throws light on the rationale of subsequent developments. It cannot be explained by his involvement in the International Communist Trade Union, the Profintern or his attendance of Comintern congresses,23 as this would have

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prompted him to accept the Comintern’s advice the moment it became known. Equally, an alternative interpretation that focuses on pressure from below poses the question of timing. Local organisations in Vidin and Stara Zagora had voiced misgivings about the neutrality immediately after the coup, and it is not plausible that they had an impact on members of the CC only two months afterwards. 24 Kolarov complicated matters later when he claimed that he had only been given a mandate to assess the situation and not necessarily to start an uprising. He had obviously forgotten that Bulgarian émigrés had been sent in with him and – more importantly – ignored the preceding correspondence between the ECCI and the Bulgarian leadership.25 Unless it is believed that lesser-known factors influenced Dimitrov, it remains obvious that Kolarov’s intervention was decisive. The possible presence in Bulgaria of a clandestine Comintern agent, Alexander Abramovich, or of Russian officers is mentioned but not confirmed categorically by any reliable documents.26 In any case, if special envoys were dispatched, their brief would hardly have contradicted Kolarov’s line. An emergency meeting of the CC attended by Kolarov took place on 5–7 August and passed a resolution to the effect that 9 June had triggered a power crisis in Bulgaria; this could be resolved by an uprising aiming for a government of workers and peasants.27 The ECCI interpreted the situation in Bulgaria not as an isolated case but as indicative of what it considered a general and ongoing crisis of capitalism. A Communist quest for power in Bulgaria could spark off revolts elsewhere, and so perpetuate revolutionary struggle in Europe. More specifically, events in Bulgaria would ideally play prelude to a revolution in Germany, which in the Comintern’s eyes the Ruhr crisis had already signalled. It is likely that such arguments were put forward by Kolarov to the Bulgarian CC, which then started rethinking its positions in the light of the potential international significance of a successful uprising in Bulgaria. Such a perspective had not featured in the erstwhile analysis of the Bulgarian Communists, but it corresponds closely with their later claim of having launched the first anti-fascist revolt in Europe. This was Dimitrov’s hour. Blagoev lay ill, but spoke in favour of continued neutrality, as was consistent with his stance during both the Soldiers’ Uprising and the Transport Strike. Kabakchiev had been entangled in contradicting the views of the ECCI. Lukanov was vehemently opposed to armed struggle, and had forestalled the attempts of individual local Communist cells to defend the Stamboliyski government. Dimitrov therefore remained the only high-profile Communist leader inside the country who could convincingly follow the new course, and his siding with Kolarov changed the balance in the CC. His radicalism and rapport with ordinary followers made him a good advocate of an uprising. As a self-proclaimed supporter of Bolshevism and admirer of the Soviet model, he did not only obey Comintern discipline but seized an opportunity to identify himself clearly as a loyal follower of Moscow. That it took Dimitrov a month to come round is proof of the deep differences among the Bulgarian leadership in the wake of the June 1923 coup. It was only in CC meetings between 15 and 17 August 1923 that specific proposals to launch an armed

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uprising were formulated. Arguing the Comintern’s case, Dimitrov and Kolarov presented a united opinion which was far from convincing, but was in practical terms increasingly feasible, since all the other leaders disagreed not only with them but also with each other. Yet after these meetings Dimitrov wrote to Kabakchiev that he felt isolated from the CC and uncertain of developments in the party. Somewhat theatrically, he declared that he might as well go to prison.28 On 16 August the Communist CC set up a military commission which commenced covert arrangements for mobilising, training and arming prospective fighters. Potential political collaborators in a united front were also approached. While the Broad Socialists, the small Radical Party and the majority of Agrarians rejected such advances, the Communists pressed on in the apparent belief that all they needed was sheer will-power – and weapons.29 For his part, Dimitrov turned his attention to explaining the imminent change of policy to Communist supporters. His task was not an easy one, as in the last six months the BKP(N) had meandered a great deal, first warning against a rightist coup, then conspicuously tolerating it, only to mobilise against it after the new government consolidated its positions. Dimitrov did not dwell too long on these fluctuations but chose to highlight the united-front strategy as the way forward. In a series of articles in Rabotnicheski Vestnik at the end of August 1923, he maintained that the June coup had succeeded due to the disunity of the left parties and because the working classes had been played off against one another. With remarkable sophistry Dimitrov in effect changed the designation of the Agrarian Union from representatives of the rural bourgeoisie to defenders of agricultural workers; his barefaced claim was that since the Agrarians were deposed from power they were no longer the political instrument of kulaks. Aiming to reassure potential allies, Dimitrov declared that the BKP(N) was not fighting for Soviet rule but for democracy, and in the first instance stood against the ‘fascist’ government. This was the moment when Dimitrov first defined fascism as both anti-Communist and anti-national, a formula he would return to a decade later. But the physiognomy of the enemy was not constant either: in the course of Dimitrov’s publications the Social Democrats refused to take part in a united front, so he quickly re-enlisted them among those he termed ‘reactionaries’.30 Dimitrov was simultaneously recruiting trade-union hardliners as future fighters, and making provision for a general strike to begin on a signal from the ORSS. At most, the Communists could claim about 12,000 men in central and western Bulgaria; ironically, the majority of these were pitifully armed peasants.31 Even so, the government could not allow any such activity, and attempted to nip the threat from the BKP(N) in the bud. Prime Minister Tsankov proposed a ‘Law for the Defence of the Realm’ which would target organisations intent on changing the state and its social system. In response, the Communists accelerated their preparations, and on 22 August 1923 the CC sent out a district circular detailing instructions for an uprising; a second circular followed four days later.32 However, the timing of the plan was not yet fixed, and within the CC opposition to it remained. Most significantly, Blagoev stood against any precipitate action, so even the ambitious and over-optimistic Dimitrov realised that the uprising might not occur earlier than 1924.33

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Dimitrov and Kolarov had taken the precaution of going into hiding, and so were not among the 2,000 Communists, including Kabakchiev, arrested by the authorities on 12 September. The government’s move triggered isolated and uncoordinated armed outbursts in the region of Stara Zagora in central Bulgaria. On 14 September, as head of the ORSS, Dimitrov called a general strike – which simply failed to materialise. The same day, Comintern agents were sent to Sofia to insist that the Communists should go into battle; it is not clear if they were meant to reinforce the Bulgarian leadership or to criticise them for delaying – or if they ever reached the country. 34 In any event, they could hardly have arrived in time for the CC meeting of 15 September where, in Kolarov’s absence, Dimitrov took the initiative and insisted that there had been mass strikes in response to the arrests of Communists. Passing on such incorrect information, he proposed that an uprising should be declared, and even claimed that it had already started. The only other member of the CC who favoured this course was Anton Ivanov, a close associate of Dimitrov’s. The following day, Dimitrov and Kolarov met together, and concurred that the plan had a real chance of success, an assessment which they then reported back to the other CC members. The date for declaring the revolt was fixed for 22–23 September. Dimitrov, Kolarov and a third Communist, Gavril Genov, formed a Revolutionary Committee, in which a token Agrarian also participated.35 This was an episode of momentous significance, from which Dimitrov emerged as the most radical member of the CC. He was the only member present at all of the recent CC meetings, continually promoting the insurrectionist line. Lukanov, who continued to insist on his doubts regarding preparations, and expected the BKP(N) to make good gains in the coming elections, later explained that Dimitrov and Kolarov had decided on a fight and ‘had packed their suitcases’.36 While Dimitrov fully embraced the idea of an uprising, he was not insensitive to the fact that it was at odds with his position at the time of the June coup. So he adjusted his stance, claiming that he had advocated neutrality as relevant only during the first days after the coup. Dimitrov’s actions from late June to the first weeks of September 1923 can be construed as a bid for the leadership of the party, in a situation where the country was still unsettled after the takeover of power and after serious divisions had appeared among the Communists themselves. Furthermore, Blagoev had been in failing health for some years but a successor was not apparent. Dimitrov, certainly one of the most popular and colourful figures in the Socialist movement, had been a member of the CC and head of the ORSS for 14 years, and there was only one obvious upward careermove he could make. This could be secured by leading a successful revolutionary uprising, especially if it was coordinated with the Comintern. At the Comintern itself, Zinoviev too might have been tempted to be credited with a major insurrection while Lenin lay dying. Judging Bulgaria a suitable starting-point for international revolution, he was either insensitive to the fact that the momentum for resisting the Tsankov coup had passed, and possible political allies were alienated, or overly optimistic that the Communists’ sheer political will could recapture the initiative and lead vast numbers of people into armed battle.

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On 22 September 1923, disguised as civil engineers on a business trip to the sparesort of Vurshets, the Revolutionary Committee left Sofia by car. They travelled some 55 miles north-west, to the town of Ferdinand. This had been chosen as the operational centre of the uprising: it was a Communist stronghold, and also near Dimitrov’s own parliamentary constituency. It is not certain that its proximity to Yugoslavia had also played a role, although that country might have considered helping the rebels, as neighbourly relations had deteriorated after the fall of Stamboliyski.37 The initial plan for the uprising had envisaged multiple, simultaneous outbreaks aiming to stretch the army across the territory and leave the capital exposed to a final blow by the rebels. However, the majority of the country remained calm. Large centres such as Russe and Burgas failed to stir, while the earlier arrests pre-empted a rising in Sofia. Initial, unsanctioned flare-ups alerted the government, and allowed the army to deal with them one at a time. The subsequent main revolt did not pose much difficulty either, as it was limited, ill-equipped and inherently problematic. Most of the fighting took place in the area between Ferdinand and Lom on the Danube, the majority of rebels being poorly-armed peasants from neighbouring villages whose mentality and grievances had little in common with the BKP(N)’s ideology. The situation soon slid into chaos, as people changed sides and families tried to hedge their bets by sending different members to fight in the opposite camps. Some participants were recruited by force, others felt misled and quickly turned on the Communist instigators. Ferdinand twice fell in and out of the hands of the insurgents. Food and shelter for the rebels were inadequate, but an organ of internal security, a so-called Extraordinary Commission on the model of the Bolshevik ChK, was set up.38 Dimitrov did not take part in or even go near the bloodshed. The Revolutionary Committee hardly left the guarded house of its local hosts. It communicated little with its forces, and had no contact with the remainder of the CC in Sofia, most of whom were in any case already imprisoned. Essentially, Dimitrov and Kolarov waited passively for the fighting to end. This phase lasted three days, until the local police and army units were reinforced. Overall, the government had little trouble with what were inept and scattered acts of rebellion on a smaller scale than even the improvised response to the June coup. Three days after officially launching the uprising, on 26 September, Dimitrov and his comrades left Ferdinand in haste and secretly, without even facing their troops. It seems that their escape route was well-prepared – they possessed impressive sums of money, and were able to secure guides and safe houses on the way to Yugoslav territory. More than a thousand militants soon followed them across the border. If the neutrality in June had been a blunder, the September Uprising was an unmitigated disaster. It lacked proper military and logistic preparation, and its political rationale was controversial. The revolutionary zeal of the leaders alone could not compensate for rashness, bad timing and lack of coordination. The behaviour of the Revolutionary Committee was also deeply questionable. Nevertheless, all of these issues were deliberately ignored by Dimitrov and Kolarov, who practically refused to bear political and personal responsibility for the failure. Even as he claimed that the casualties were around 5,000 – and later kept increasing the number – Dimitrov

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contended that this had been ‘just’ a military defeat by a bigger and better organised adversary. Almost cynically, he argued that the uprising had been politically and morally justified, and that ‘the defeat will teach us how to win’. Expressing their joint position, Kolarov wrote to the ECCI on 12 October acknowledging that preparations had been inadequate but still maintaining that the uprising had been necessary in order to unite the movement and stay ‘on the side of the masses’. It was months before he admitted that the united front had not been implemented, and cooperation with the Agrarians underestimated.39 The uprising alleviated the ECCI’s concern that the BKP(N) was showing signs of ‘parliamentary complacency’. In fact, the failed revolutionary experiment was deeply detrimental to the Communists’ cause and existence, as it played into the hands of those who advocated a ban on the party and provided an argument for the rising nationalist right in Bulgaria. The September events unleashed the most extreme of the anti-leftist tendencies in Tsankov’s government, and a wave of arrests of real or suspected Communist sympathisers engulfed the country. The atmosphere of terror was also used to deal a deadly blow to some of the new regime’s democratic nonCommunist critics. Torture, unlawful detention and summary executions became common, paralysing the opposition and driving deep underground those BKP(N) functionaries still at large.40 The events of September 1923 marked a watershed in relations between the Third International and its Bulgarian section. The latter had faithfully reported and coordinated policy as required by the Comintern rules. Nonetheless, the decision for an uprising was imposed on the local leadership amidst considerable doubt and opposition, and with minimal discussion, and in this Dimitrov’s role had been instrumental. The Bulgarian casualties were the price for Moscow’s disciplining of its ‘insufficiently Bolshevised’ comrades. The latter’s reward was that the Fifth Congress of the Comintern in 1924 canonised the September Uprising as an example of Communist revolutionary courage.41 Dimitrov personally took a great deal of the credit. Dimitrov, Kolarov and a handful of companions crossed the Yugoslav border without obstacle and were welcomed by fellow-countrymen, mostly Agrarian sympathisers who had already fled Bulgaria. Tsankov’s firm nationalist agenda contrasted with his predecessor’s moderation to such an extent that the Yugoslav government was prepared to give asylum to its enemy’s domestic enemies. Not only was Dimitrov’s whole passage through Yugoslavia smooth but his group of high-profile Communist refugees also met with well-inclined local policemen, town mayors and other officials.42 In Yugoslavia, Dimitrov and Kolarov even had a chance to compose an ‘Open Letter to the Workers and Peasants of Bulgaria’; this started a massive damage-limitation campaign by insisting that the uprising had not been a grave error. The opening lines proclaimed the main message, ‘Lift Up Your Heads!’, and promised that ‘despite everything, there will be a government of workers and peasants in Bulgaria’. The letter claimed that the June coup had begun a civil war in which the agents of capitalism had first destroyed the Agrarian Union and then turned onto their real target, the Communists. Creatively ignoring recent chronology, it posited that the

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increasing popularity of the BKP(N) and its united front with the Agrarians had precipitated violent government provocation. In this manner, Dimitrov and Kolarov rejected the government’s version that the BKP(N) had been preparing a coup, construing it merely as an allegation used to justify the crack-down on the party. Further, the two leaders maintained that the events of September 1923 had been triggered by impulsive local-level flare-ups, after which the party leadership had no choice but to follow the masses and direct them. They also confirmed the Communist slogan of a government of workers and peasants, but explained that it envisaged not a Soviet regime but broad democratic rule.43 The ‘Open Letter’ did not dwell on the reasons for the failure of the uprising, but offered resounding phrases about learning from mistakes and carrying on with the fight. The version of events it presented was afterwards relentlessly upheld by Dimitrov. It contributed to the mythology of the party, providing it with a revolutionary past and creating heroes of the leaders and martyrs of the victims. Such a positive interpretation played a substantial role in Dimitrov’s own biography, and helped further his Communist career. Crucially, it suited the Third International equally well: it also had a vested interest in evaluating the events of September 1923 as anything but a complete and utter failure. From Yugoslavia Dimitrov and Kolarov moved to Austria, relatively liberal and slowly stabilising itself after the First World War. Kosta Todorov, whose fate had once again crossed with Dimitrov’s, boasted that through his many international acquaintances he had arranged travel documents for the Communists and given them money for the trip.44 On 15 October 1923, having made contact with Comintern representatives in Vienna, Dimitrov and Kolarov, together with their associate Georgi Mihailov, proclaimed themselves to be the Foreign Bureau (FB) of the Central Committee of the BKP(N). In theory, this aimed to serve and support the party from the safety of abroad, but it was an entirely unprecedented and arguably illegitimate institution. If it was justified in an emergency, it still disregarded the substantial disagreement with many who remained in Bulgaria, and gave such comrades no opportunity to express any opinion on the necessity for or the composition and functions of the new organ. In practice, the FB had seceded from the CC, and from its very beginning mounted a bid for political control of the internal organisation. This was evident from its selfapportioned task of drafting new programmatic documents and its attempts to influence the cooption of new members of the internal CC. As befitted his character and position, Dimitrov instantly established himself as the most activist of the Communist exiles: within a week of the setting-up of the FB, Kolarov left for Moscow to resume his functions at the ECCI. Kolarov thus provided the link with the ECCI, whose approval was in fact all that legitimised the FB. Dimitrov and Kolarov were at this stage mutually dependent, since if they acted in unison it would be possible to show that a firm Bulgarian Communist nucleus existed in Vienna, in contrast to the weakened and split internal leadership. Dimitrov began pursuing a twofold objective – to assume leadership of the whole BKP(N), not just of those who had fled the country, and to vindicate his previous decisions and actions.

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Not only had Dimitrov failed to learn from previous mistakes, he immediately set out to repeat them: with the Comintern’s consent he continued to hold that an uprising should stay firmly on the Communists’ short-term agenda. On 16 October, the FB reviewed the political situation in Bulgaria and concluded that an opportunity for decisive action could arise fairly soon, as the political crisis in Europe was deepening.45 On 20 October, this evaluation was forwarded to the CC in Sofia and to the ECCI.46 It was also presented in Rabotnicheski Vestnik, which Dimitrov edited in Vienna for the first few months of his exile. Even though the distribution of the newspaper in Bulgaria was erratic, it remained a powerful platform for influencing the party faithful. Conscious of the importance of institutions, Dimitrov wasted no time in resurrecting the recently-neglected Balkan Communist Federation, which had migrated with him. In November 1923 it held its Sixth Conference in Moscow, where it too highlighted the persistence of a revolutionary situation across the Balkan region. The crisis in Bulgaria was judged to be at the most advanced stage, and therefore in need of imminent attention.47 This was one of the ways in which Dimitrov tried to make his exile more meaningful: with few helpers around him, he wrote the BKF documents himself, and corresponded with the Comintern on its behalf. So yet another link bound him to the Comintern and added value to his still uncertain position. His circumstances looked up when he was appointed as the Profintern’s resident for the Balkans in early 1924, and received much-needed funds.48 The ubiquitous Todorov claimed that a few months abroad had changed Dimitrov remarkably and ‘he was perfumed and elegant’.49 By December 1923 Dimitrov’s wife had arrived in Vienna, but according to archival evidence the couple were initially in dire financial straits. Dimitrov asked for Kolarov’s help and also took out a loan from the Comintern agent Albrecht. Only in February 1924 did the Comintern start sending various allowances, although rather less than had been requested.50 The relations between Vienna and Sofia were difficult. The uprising had caused multiple and long-lasting fissures in the leadership of the party, which had already been tense and divided. Blagoev’s illness made him unable to arbitrate among the quarrelling factions as he had before. In court Kabakchiev implied that the uprising had not been planned by the BKP(N), thus disavowing the immediate organisers, Dimitrov and Kolarov. Even local organisations such as the one in Vidin protested against the conduct of the two leaders in a letter to the ECCI.51 The internal centre did not make it easy for Dimitrov to exchange views with local activists and keep up to date with developments.52 Dimitrov believed that the Bulgarian Communists should boycott the general elections called for November 1923. The CC dismissed this recommendation and a handful of Communists were amazingly returned after campaigning on a common list with leftist Agrarians. The new deputies led by Nikola Sakarov dealt Dimitrov and Kolarov a serious blow by disavowing the September Uprising, and blaming it on ‘adventurist elements’. They pledged instead the use of legal parliamentary methods, which promptly brought down Dimitrov’s wrath: he labelled them ‘liquidationist’, and in tune with tradition spared no effort to secure their ousting from the party.53

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Yet there were other direct and indirect critics of Dimitrov’s line. Lukanov for one argued against the establishment of the FB, and this stance prevailed in December 1923 when the Sofia CC decided that the FB should be dissolved, and the publishing of the party newspaper taken away from it. The only CC representative abroad should be at the BKF, a subordinate post insufficient for Dimitrov’s vast ambitions. Dimitrov counteracted such threats to his new-found role through manipulating the Comintern’s rules and procedures. He suggested to Kolarov that quick steps in Moscow should ensure that an ECCI envoy went to Bulgaria to ‘sort out’ the CC and ‘carry through our views’. Once the ECCI gave the existing situation its seal of approval, no domestic leaders could question it.54 In the meantime, Dimitrov was scheming as to how to prevent the views of the internal activists from reaching Moscow: he suggested that Kolarov should arrange matters so that Naim Isakov, who was to be sent from Sofia to Moscow, stayed incognito, did not meet any Bulgarian émigrés and returned immediately.55 Similarly, Dimitrov spared no effort to prevent a spokesperson for a group of Bulgarian Communist students in Vienna from going to Moscow to explain their views to the ECCI. Not long after the establishment of the FB, they had signed a letter of protest and adopted a resolution, both extremely harsh towards ‘the heroes of September 1923’. They directly accused Dimitrov and Kolarov of pointlessly exposing the Bulgarian people in the uprising and then of appropriating the party leadership through the FB. They criticised the unilateral manner in which Rabotnicheski Vestnik was published and the shabby treatment of the refugees in Yugoslavia. The Vienna group passed judgment on the whole tactic since 9 June, and Dimitrov emerged in a rather negative light. He was truly outraged by the censure, perhaps additionally stung by the fact that it was issued in the city where he had settled. He refused to accept that these views were representative of wider opinion. His reply was built solely on the repetitive argument that all his actions had been coordinated with and sanctioned by the ECCI. Apart from this, Dimitrov launched into pure vitriol, claiming that by forwarding their allegations the students had behaved like the regime in Bulgaria; he branded their actions as antiparty, uncomradely and undignified. On 27 November he demanded that the Vienna students withdraw their protest, follow the orders of the FB and observe Comintern discipline – apparently ignoring the fact that such demands confirmed some of the very accusations against him. When the students refused, Dimitrov appealed for help from other student and émigré groups in Europe.56 For Dimitrov the criticism of the Vienna group, who had taken the liberty of circulating their protest among other Bulgarian communities abroad, was ‘scandalous’ and ‘reckless’ behaviour. It made his tactic of presenting the conflict as an inconsequential exception more difficult. The Vienna Communists did not back down even after the FB sent ‘an explanatory letter’ and talks were held. Dimitrov kept his calm with difficulty, well understanding that his whole raison d’être was being challenged; he could only resort to fighting back and depicting his detractors as ‘absolutely alien to the supreme interest of the Bulgarian Communist movement in these hard times’, while pledging that he was serving the interest of the party. One

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statement in his reply stands out: ‘There is a basic rule in mass political activity, known to every revolutionary, and it says that it is better for the masses to make a common false step rather than to disrupt their unity.’ This could be the motto for all his activities in the 1920s – and beyond. For Dimitrov ‘the situation was serious but should not be seen as tragic’. An experienced manipulator and with a better understanding of the Comintern mechanisms, he was able to set up a meeting of the FB with two members of the ECCI where the Vienna group was thoroughly condemned, ordered to retract its documents and forced to acknowledge the authority of the FB as a body that had the confidence of the ECCI. The alternative for the students was ostracism. 57 This altercation set the tone for more than a decade of internal intrigues and factional fights among the Bulgarian Communists in exile. Under attack, Dimitrov and Kolarov were brought closer than ever before. Having reasserted the authority of the FB, Dimitrov acknowledged that ‘the disaster is colossal and that erstwhile aid has been negligent’, but also insisted that ‘the masses follow the road shown by the September Uprising’. He believed that even after the defeat ‘the party is facing with all its magnitude the issue of taking over power and establishing a government of workers and peasants in Bulgaria through a new, betterprepared and victorious people’s uprising’.58 He and Kolarov were unanimous that Europe was continuing to experience an acute revolutionary crisis, while the Balkans might erupt any moment. The tactic they prescribed was twofold: the BKP(N) should be reorganised underground, and a new legal party should be established. The latter, to be named the Party of Labour, would target not only workers but all wage-earners, and particularly former Agrarian members.59 Despite rejection from some extreme leftist elements, the Party of Labour was indeed set up. It was only thinly disguised as a legal facade for the Communists, and did not survive beyond the passing of the ‘Law of the Defence of the Realm’ in April 1924. By then the membership of BKP(N) had fallen to around 2,500, of whom only about 400 were active.60 Dimitrov’s views on the volatility of the general European situation clearly echoed those of the Comintern. Notably, and with respect to Bulgaria and the rest of the Balkans in particular, Dimitrov and Kolarov were as much influenced by the ECCI’s analysis as they were consciously providing evidence in its support. They argued that conditions in Bulgaria were ripe for a second armed attempt, which could spearhead revolution in the Balkans.61 It is clear that without such categorical assertions the FB would not have received the same level of financial support from the Comintern; it is even more obvious that such a line both justified previous actions and served to present the FB as a loyal supporter of the Comintern. Therefore, motivated by their own interests, Dimitrov and Kolarov presented a distorted picture which then reinforced the Comintern’s own rather biased interpretation of international developments. At the beginning of February 1924 the ECCI reviewed what was termed ‘the Bulgarian question’. Hindsight had contributed little to the analysis of recent events that had culminated in the failed uprising. Once again, the ECCI exposed the BKP(N)’s neutrality on the 9 June coup as erroneous, a logic which led it to praise the September Uprising. More strikingly, a resolution of 14 February 1924 confirmed that

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the political crisis in Bulgaria was not only ongoing but actually deepening. Accordingly, the BKP(N) was directed to build a strong underground organisation which could carry out a second mass uprising, in concert with the BZNS, and ultimately propel a government of workers and peasants to power.62 This was a clear example of the Comintern’s strategy for a second wave of Communist-directed revolutions. Dimitrov no doubt saw himself and his organisations as the committed agents of such policy. He was heartened by a meeting of Bulgarian Communist émigrés in Moscow which approved the policy on 3 March 1924; this backing was not only morally valuable but also helped in the attempt to sidestep the internal hierarchy of decision-taking.63 However, there were disappointments too, when for instance the Politburo of the VKP(B) advised the Bulgarian party, on 12 March, not to rely on Russian military support.64 Shortly afterwards, as head of the BKF, Dimitrov proclaimed: The Bulgarian party should overcome . . . the inevitable crisis and draw . . . the moral from the June and September events, so that in the future . . . a real revolutionary direction is followed and the ranks are purged of all hesitant and uncertain elements.65

The Bulgarian question dominated the agenda of the BKF, but developments in Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, Macedonia and even Albania were also scrutinised. The BKF convened no less than 19 working meetings in the period of December 1923– March 1924, mostly looking into agrarian and national problems. Dimitrov credited himself with resolving the nationalist differences between the Bulgarian and Yugoslav Communists: the BKF planned for an uprising in Macedonia in the spring of 1924, which all Balkan Communists should support, acknowledging the region’s right to selfdetermination.66 In truth, a concurrent armed struggle in Macedonia would greatly assist the work of the Communists in Bulgaria. Soon after settling in Vienna Dimitrov succeeded in asserting himself as the trusted activist of the Comintern. Benefiting from the predicament of the wayward and persecuted internal leadership, he practically supplanted it, becoming the international face of the Bulgarian Communists. He regularly updated Moscow on developments in Bulgaria, even when he himself was short of reliable information, and made sure that each step he took was approved by the Comintern. He often added his own comments to directives from the ECCI to Sofia, giving the impression that he was acting as much more than just one of the channels of transmission. To begin with, Dimitrov’s post in Vienna was unauthorised and to some extent unnecessary; but in less than a year he made his role secure as the middle man between the BKP(N) and the ECCI. The consolidation of Dimitrov’s position at the FB was facilitated by his physical presence in Moscow, where he spent most of 1924. In January he arrived for the ECCI plenum and was still there for Lenin’s funeral at the end of the month. In June–July he participated in the Fifth Congress of the Comintern, where he was made a candidatemember of the ECCI. This was followed by the Profintern congress and the BKF conference. Dimitrov naturally used these occasions for networking among foreign Communists and the Soviet party elite.67

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A sign of Dimitrov’s increasing acceptability in Comintern circles was his appointment in April 1924 as the ECCI representative to the Austrian Communist Party. Uncharacteristically, he agreed reluctantly to this new responsibility, for monitoring developments in his host country. It added to his burdens and he was aware of the slightly ridiculous nature of the situation – he was not even fluent in German. Still, he braced himself for the task, and within a month of his appointment had penned no less than four reports to the ECCI on the complicated internal quarrels of the Austrian CC.68 In the first half of 1924 the ECCI received contradictory reports as to whether Tsankov was consolidating his domestic position or whether the question of power remained open.69 The assessment depended on whether the reigning violence of the regime, in which not only political figures but also well-known liberally-minded artists and intellectuals had perished, projected strength or weakness. The latter view prevailed at the time of the Comintern congress, and accordingly the BKP(N)’s objective was defined as a government of workers and peasants – understood in practice as the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the aftermath of the congress, Dimitrov and Kolarov advised the internal leaders that the Comintern appreciated the strategic value of the Balkans, and saw in the BKP(N) the key to revolution in the whole region.70 By then, a significant proportion of the internal Communist elite had subscribed to the ECCI’s earlier resolutions. On 17–18 May 1924, supporters of the FB led by Stanke Dimitrov (also known as Marek, and an associate of Dimitrov) organised a conference on Mount Vitosha, near Sofia. A new CC was elected, which included Dimitrov and Kolarov. The September Uprising and the FB’s line on a new uprising were endorsed; it was resolved to increase efforts to acquire weapons and train paramilitaries. Even if the timeframe was not precisely drawn, these were more than simply abstract proposals adhering to the theories of the ECCI and the FB. 71 Steps were shortly undertaken to set up Communist cells in the Bulgarian army, and to collect arms – the shipping-in of Soviet materiel, although small-scale, had not been seriously interrupted.72 Dimitrov’s political initiatives and practical work focused on what were deemed to be the three revolutionary factors in the Balkans – the proletarian and agrarian parties, together with the so-called national-liberation movements. A major preoccupation since emigrating to Vienna was the building of a solid working relationship with the Bulgarian Agrarians. The Communists tried to tap the political resource constituted by the numerous Stamboliyski supporters who had fled Bulgaria and were seeking revenge and a return to power. This tallied with the current Comintern tactic of a united front, which underpinned the formation of the Agrarian International (Krestintern) in October 1923.73 In practice, the Communists sought to infiltrate the peasant parties and manipulate them from within, a tactic abundantly clear in the Bulgarian case. Dimitrov and Kolarov gave significant thought to attracting the so-called ‘left Agrarians’, i.e. the most radical and pro-Communist elements in the faction-ridden BZNS.74 However, Dimitrov’s initial contacts were with the moderate Agrarians, led by his old prison acquaintance Kosta Todorov and by Alexandur Obbov, another of

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Stamboliyski’s former ministers. Their first formal meeting took place in Vienna in early November 1923 and mainly consisted of testing the ground for possible cooperation, while both sides vied for the other’s assets. In Dimitrov’s version, Todorov claimed that Yugoslavia would not only provide a base for the Bulgarian insurgents but would also supply guns, motorcycles and aircraft (no less). However, Todorov allegedly voiced a preference for a loan from Russia, to be spent under Communist control. Dimitrov, in turn, asked for money to organise a courier service with Bulgaria.75 According to Todorov’s recollections, Dimitrov was already busy constructing the prospective coalition government in which the BKP(N) would want the ministries of war, the interior and communications. Dimitrov also mentioned a transfer of arms from Russia to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Although the Agrarian rejected what he saw as a brazen plan for Communist supremacy, he still agreed to travel to Moscow to resume negotiations. The unabashedly speculative horse-trading continued there in 1924, when Dimitrov did not budge except to offer the Agrarians 20 million French francs for acquiescing in a Communist-dominated government masquerading as a coalition.76 Nonetheless, Todorov’s signature is on a memorandum dated 20 February 1924, which in seven paragraphs laid down a joint plan for an armed uprising, with a view to proclaiming a government of workers and peasants.77 Why Todorov agreed to what was a copy of the recent BKP(N)’s and ECCI’s resolutions can only be guessed at: in his memoirs he wrote that Dimitrov and Kolarov threatened that they would refuse to secure the Russian exit visa he needed unless they obtained what they wanted. In any case, the Agrarians soon completely disowned the agreement, not only due to the manner in which it was concluded but above all because of internal disagreements. Back in Vienna, Dimitrov admitted that consequent exchanges were no more than casual in nature, as the Agrarians were not pleased with ‘our work in Moscow’.78 As levels of mutual distrust rose, due to both sides’ irreconcilable demands for military command and political leadership, by the summer of 1924 Communist relations with the Todorov–Obbov faction had frozen. This was very plausibly connected to the rising prospect of cooperation with the BKP(N)’s preferred partner among the Agrarians, namely the circle around Nedyalko Atanassov and Hristo Stoyanov, also former ministers in the Stamboliyski government. They had recently escaped from prison in Bulgaria and made their way to Prague, where on 1–2 September 1924 they met Dimitrov. Another protocol was written up reiterating the undertaking of joint preparations for an uprising, under the slogan of a ‘united front of workers and peasants’. Dimitrov suggested a fresh formula for ‘a people’s republican government’, which was meant to avoid the intricate arguments about whether the future regime should be ‘of workers and peasants’ or ‘of peasants and workers’. Even so, the new collaborators also harboured mutual suspicions, and Dimitrov believed that the Agrarians were negotiating out of sheer weakness.79 He understood that the driving forces of the planned uprising would determine the nature of the government that would follow. The newcomers seemed more eager for quick action, even as soon as October, and despite well-founded scepticism the Communists agreed to work to this deadline. It came and went with nothing more substantial than further meetings in

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Belgrade, which only revealed fresh disagreements. Nevertheless, Dimitrov favoured continued contacts, as both parties were aware of their impotence if operating alone. As the émigré rebels gradually lost the little support they had had from neighbouring governments, and more specifically Yugoslavia, the Agrarians leant towards a traditional military coup in Bulgaria. This was planned by the former minister of war General Zhekov, whom Dimitrov also agreed to support and quickly dubbed ‘a leftist officer’ – he had professed he would accept a ‘people’s government’. 80 However, this was a compromise too far for the internal CC, who feared the Communists would be overwhelmed in a coalition with both the Agrarians and the military. They criticised Dimitrov for not observing the party programme and for agreeing to an unprincipled future coalition. Dimitrov suddenly found himself accused as rightist within the BKP(N). He insisted that all his consultations with the Agrarians had been based on the same principles and that his internal comrades had always been kept up to date. However, even the ECCI was concerned that the FB was ‘overdoing it’ in the latest round of contacts, forsaking the leadership of the whole enterprise by offering the Agrarians parity.81 Links with the Agrarians were only one aspect of a complex political and military network that the Communists were hoping to create and control. Dimitrov also engaged in talks with another group of Bulgarian radicals, the leaders of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (VMRO). His involvement here is less welldocumented and harder to trace, as this organisation was a Pandora’s Box of internecine fights in permanent flux. The further carving out of the geographical region of Macedonia between the neighbouring Balkan countries after the wars had exacerbated a festering national and territorial problem. Relations between the Communists and the VMRO were complicated: even though the VMRO had been a vital actor in the 9 June coup, the BKP(N) had tentatively approached it on the eve of the September Uprising. After their defeat the Communists looked for every remotely possible ally: if cooperation with the Agrarians was coveted because of their huge mass support, the VMRO could provide the much-needed paramilitary dimension. A panoply of motives drove both sides towards each other. The Communists’ rationalisation was that the VMRO ‘objectively’ undermined the bourgeois governments of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, thus contributing to the revolutionary situation across the Balkans. Dimitrov, as the head of the BKF, was particularly insistent that the Bulgarian CC should not approach the Macedonian issue from a nationalist perspective.82 On the other hand, the BKF and Comintern policy of support for national liberation movements such as the VMRO had less to do with the principle of self-determination than with the Soviet policy for the destabilisation of Yugoslavia and the establishment of a multi-national federation in the Balkans. This policy also included the fracturing of the region into smaller national states, including a Thracian and Dobrudjan nation – as adopted by the BKF on 18 April 1924.83 Dimitrov speeded up contacts with the VMRO on the recommendation of the Comintern representative Milyutin, who visited Bulgaria in March 1924. 84 A number of émigré Macedonian activists had set up in Vienna, but Dimitrov was in contact with the so-called Macedonian Federalists, who stood outside the main VMRO. As the

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name implies, they were proponents of a Balkan federation, and had long been influenced by Communist ideas. Some Federalists, such as the Bulgarian deputy Dimo Hadjidimov, were equally committed members of the BKP(N). Dimitrov met several times with the well-known Federalist Todor Panitsa, whom he judged to have ‘oriented well’. The Communists’ Macedonian policy, however, was not clearly thought out or coordinated; yet the optimum objective remained to secure an understanding with the main VMRO, which commanded prestige and mass support on the ground. The Bulgarian Communists, including Dimitrov, fluctuated in their approach, mainly because they perceived the national issue as one of distinctly secondary importance; their priority was to harness the militant insurrectionary force of the VMRO. At a minimum, in view of the precedent of June 1923, the Communists had an interest in at least neutralising the VMRO as a potential adversary in the projected uprising. The attitude towards the Communists of the mainstream VMRO leadership under Todor Alexandrov is difficult to unravel. The VMRO was possibly looking for alternative sources of funds, something Dimitrov always used effectively in all his political negotiations. Each of the VMRO factions could benefit from the Communist and, by extension, Soviet support in their internal strife for dominance within the organisation. The Communists’ attempt to engage parts of the Macedonian movement with the cause of armed uprising had dramatic and confusing effects. On 29 April 1924 the CC of the main VMRO issued a declaration calling for the liberation and unification of Macedonia within a larger Balkan federation. Other than the very fact of its having been drawn up, the most striking element in the document was its stated reliance on ‘the progressive revolutionary factors in Europe’, that is the Communists. It also publicly accepted the principle of class struggle, and invited the involvement of the USSR in the solution of the national question in the Balkans. The following day, the unification of the VMRO and a Federalist group was announced. The Communists’ mediation in arriving at this end was obvious, and although not certain it is highly plausible that Dimitrov worked for it, at least behind the scenes. When he informed Kolarov of the declaration he commented that it was not satisfactory but was ‘a step forward’.85 A week later, on 6 May, A Manifesto to the Macedonian People was published, spelling out the same ideas as the VMRO agreement. 86 However, one of the three leaders, Todor Alexandrov, swiftly claimed that the Manifesto had been published by the Communists without his consent, an act that according to him invalidated his signature – which had been a proxy one anyway. By 1 August Alexandur Protoguerov, the second leader, also withdrew his support, realising that under the pretext of facilitating its unification the Communists were carrying out exactly the opposite policy – of dividing the VMRO in order to dominate it.87 Dimitrov was adamantly in favour of announcing the Manifesto openly, as he was convinced that such an act would force Alexandrov to clarify his position regarding both the Tsankov government and the BKP(N). If the VMRO leaders stood by their signatures, they would allow Communist interference among their ranks; if they

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revoked them, the very fact that they had bargained would cast a shadow on their integrity. However, the Communist CC in Sofia had doubts over this approach, especially since its delegate had not been included in the negotiations.88 In turn, Dimitrov accused the CC of placing too much emphasis on the leadership instead of working to infiltrate the VMRO. He reminded members that ultimately the issue would be subjected to the arbitration of the VKP(B) and the Comintern.89 And indeed, in July 1924 the Fifth Congress of the Comintern confirmed that through the BKF all national revolutionary forces should be reined in before the prospective uprising in the Balkans. Six months after the appearance of the Manifesto, Dimitrov and the internal CC were still exchanging accusations of inability to comprehend each other’s approach to the VMRO. It was then that Dimitrov revealed that the document had been conceived as a manoeuvre against Alexandrov. He quickly returned to a favourite refrain, namely that there should not be a hunt ‘for those who were guilty’ of creating the present fiasco but that the focus should shift to future activity.90 In the late summer of 1924, Alexandrov was assassinated by Macedonian activists, who could not forgive his role in the May Manifesto, despite his swift repudiation of it. This led in turn to a wave of bloodshed within the VMRO, with show murders terrorising the Bulgarian capital, prompting Dimitrov to write several articles on the ‘deep crisis’ in the Macedonian movement. He claimed that the latter needed to transform itself into a genuine, unifying national revolutionary force for a free, united and independent Macedonia. The specific meaning of these words was revealed in his further declaration that the Communists were in the front rank of the Macedonian movement, standing for national self-determination and federation – only possible in the context of a united front of workers, peasants and national liberation movements.91 In November 1924 Dimitrov continued to confer with Panitsa, who was willing to cooperate over the uprising. Panitsa’s guerrilla experience was certainly thought valuable, and Dimitrov considered him as ‘a solid revolutionary’. However, in this period he attributed revolutionary credentials to prospective partners simply to mark their acceptance of common tactics with the Communists.92 Panitsa was negotiating separately with Atanassov’s leftist Agrarians, and both claimed that several Greek ministers had promised money, weapons and bases on Greek territory for the assault on Tsankov. Dimitrov was convinced that: ‘Panitsa himself, even if he acts in coordination with the Agrarians, has no confidence in them but sincerely supports us and follows our directions – naturally under disguise.’ Panitsa had been sent ‘three little Macedonians from Moscow’ and was to receive more ‘good activists’, who would help him recruit some 500 combatants. Notably, Dimitrov claimed that these would challenge not only the government in Sofia but also the VMRO proper.93 Dimitrov approached negotiations with both the Agrarians and Macedonians with a degree of cynicism, and was repeatedly sceptical as to their revolutionary potential. Of course, for him any cooperation with non-Marxists was purely tactical: he clearly recognised that however ‘progressive’ or ‘leftist’ they were, forces outside the Communist movement were mostly needed only to provide manpower and combat expertise and to widen popular support for the prospective uprising.

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Dimitrov was at least aware, although not in charge, of a Soviet centre for special operations that was expanding into the Balkans in parallel with the revolutionary preparations of the Bulgarian Communists. This included putting in place a complex Soviet network of espionage and sabotage in Bulgaria. Soviet advisors and also émigrés who had been trained and indoctrinated were sent in to reinforce paramilitary units formed across the country.94 The politics of the future uprising involved busy if exasperating work, and the FB was at its centre. Additionally, Dimitrov acted as a funnel for aid to the Communist militants who had followed him in exile. He initiated numerous petitions and addresses on their behalf, ostensibly aiming to draw attention to their plight among the democratic European nations, but in fact aiming mainly to provoke censure for the Tsankov coup; his numerous open letters, published mainly in the Communist press, brought little tangible benefits for the displaced combatants from the September Uprising. Dimitrov himself stayed largely distant from his exiled followers, who numbered no more than 2,000. The majority of these had remained in the countries directly bordering Bulgaria, and especially in Yugoslavia where despite the initial welcome they endured chronic unemployment, poor accommodation and uncertain civil status. All this inevitably affected their morale; Gavril Genov had the thankless job of maintaining their unity and political alertness. While Dimitrov was certainly aware of the sorry state of the Bulgarian refugees in neighbouring countries, he oversaw applications for and the distribution of the financial aid supplied by a Comintern auxiliary body, the International Organisation for Aid of Revolutionaries (MOPR). The allowance it provided barely covered the minimum necessities, and the amounts and the manner of their distribution often triggered squabbles and accusations against the leaders of being uninterested and even corrupt. Limited resources meant that Dimitrov had to adjudicate between different priorities: for instance the emigrants in Turkey were seen as most in danger of extradition, and so were among the first to be transferred to Russia en masse. But for the majority this was not an option, and all Dimitrov could do was to direct them to stay in compact, organised groups and to report to Vienna. In fact more than anything he needed them in a semi-mobilised state so they could be dispatched to Bulgaria without delay when the signal for the new fighting was given. In December 1923, Dimitrov worried that many exiles might be tempted by the amnesty that had been proclaimed in Bulgaria, and warned them they would still be persecuted if they returned.95 This reflected his anxiety to keep large numbers of his followers physically and morally fit for an entry as rebels into Bulgaria. However, by the following spring he was wondering whether it might be better to send them back for underground work in Bulgaria, a solution that would be politically preferable to leaving them languishing in Yugoslavia.96 Adding to Dimitrov’s difficulties was the scant budget allocated by the Comintern for the Bulgarian uprising. He complained on 11 March 1924 that the money given to the BKP(N) was half what the Yugoslav Communists were receiving without their contemplating ‘such epochal events’.97 The following months he frequently reminded Moscow of the necessary funds, mentioning specifically the party’s Military

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Organisation (VO).98 In mid-July 1924, Dimitrov agreed that 10,000 rifles and 100 machine guns should be smuggled through Communist channels into Bulgaria, even though the weapons had been obtained in Serbia by the leftist Agrarians.99 In the late spring and summer of 1924, just as relations with potential partners were coming to a head, Dimitrov was increasingly occupied with the state of the party inside Bulgaria. On the eve of the Vitosha conference the internal leadership were keen to take over the initiative from the FB. Their plan of action foresaw the formation of guerrilla units. Dimitrov did not greet this proposal with much enthusiasm, as he was concerned over how firm the control exerted by the VO would be and how it would interact with the political struggle. He argued against the proposal, as armed units operating in the countryside might divert resources from the main assault, and shift the centre of activity from the towns to the countryside, an ideologically unacceptable proposition.100 As it became clear that the uprising would not be possible before the autumn of 1924, at the end of July, Dimitrov composed a programmatic letter to the internal CC on behalf of the FB. The leitmotif was the importance of remaining a disciplined Comintern member, which would guarantee that any errors would be promptly corrected. Paradoxically, after the casualties of the September Uprising he had maintained that it was the preceding conflict between the Bulgarian CC and the ECCI that had been fatal. Vitally, Dimitrov revealed that the Comintern was in the process of altering its analysis of the European situation. After the sparks of revolution in Germany at the end of 1923 had faded, the prospects of revolution elsewhere also diminished. The Comintern no longer pushed for an uprising in Bulgaria at any cost, even though Dimitrov and Kolarov had succeeded in highlighting the strategic value of the Balkans. So Dimitrov, who had for ten months been one of the prime movers of the plan for a Bulgarian Communist uprising, turned around and warned that the internal leadership had a far too optimistic impression of the situation in Bulgaria, and should tone down their analysis. He maintained that the enemy had grown more powerful and the party could not risk another failure. There should therefore be thorough and careful preparation of the masses before a final showdown. He continued in further correspondence to comment on what he saw as the internal leadership’s preference for terrorism. To him, this was only acceptable as an introduction to ‘the big struggle’, in which the masses would be fully mobilised for the goal of a government of workers and peasants; otherwise it was simply anarchism.101 In tune with the new moderate approach, Dimitrov soon advised a possible rapprochement with the former ‘liquidationists’, who had advocated a parliamentary role for the BKP(N). Dimitrov admitted that the party was so weak and poor it could not afford to reject any offers; yet Sakarov’s group should first acknowledge the supremacy of the CC.102 This uncharacteristic compromise is best comprehended against a background of the BKP(N)’s meagre membership figures of around 1,000 in the in late 1924 and early 1925. 103 In September 1924, around 800 Communist sympathisers were roaming the countryside in illegal detachments; but their value in a strike at the government was questionable in view of their pitiful levels of training and armament.

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The volatile domestic situation during the second half of 1924 added to the visible tensions between the FB and the CC. In August, the police discovered the sea route from Russia and seized a quantity of arms. By early September the Agrarians had compensated for the loss from their own sources, but Dimitrov was concerned lest the Communists should find themselves in a subordinate position.104 In mid-November the VO obtained significant quantities of weapons, but it became obvious these could not be put to use as few military experts were available. Nonetheless, Dimitrov became optimistic at ‘the possibility of an uprising in the spring’ depending on ‘fast and complete preparation’ in the following three months. If this did not occur, to his mind the chances for a foreseeable uprising would be reduced by 90 per cent – it ‘cannot be postponed for years’.105 Indeed, with every move of the launch date – from the summer to the autumn of 1924, and then to the following spring – Dimitrov and Kolarov were increasingly apprehensive of the internal weakness and international isolation of the Bulgarian Communists. While firm agreement with potential allies eluded Dimitrov and military preparations were far from adequate, he was also aware of the consequences for Bulgaria of the generally diminishing perspectives for revolution in Europe. However, neither Dimitrov nor Kolarov suggested a complete halt to the project – they simply pressed for its timing to be reconsidered, and competed with the internal leadership for authority to give the ultimate go-ahead for the uprising. The steering of the underground party was arguably the most challenging task. To Dimitrov, the leaders inside Bulgaria were too mesmerised by the ‘technical aspects’ of the forthcoming battle. In particular, the head of the VO, Kosta Yankov, ‘remained a typical officer in his mentality and actions’, while Dimitrov hinted that the internal CC did not fully comprehend the essence of the work. In September–October 1924 a range of new misunderstandings on old issues arose, as the united front, the Macedonian issue, the nature and programme of the future government all became points of contention. These were most serious questions, which spanned the whole strategy of the BKP(N) in its quest for power. Dimitrov in a sense trivialised them by suggesting that they all boiled down to ‘the prejudice that internal activists were risking their lives while Dimitrov wanted to lead’.106 The state of inter-CC relations in fact made it questionable whether the internal Communist machine would place itself under the command of the Vienna Bureau. By the beginning of 1925, it looked increasingly unrealistic that the year-long preparation for a Communist takeover would bear results; consequently, support for General Zhekov’s plans for a coup was increasingly enticing. The uncertainty and nearstalemate required thorough consultation at a higher level, and so Marek was sent as the CC’s special emissary to the ECCI. Just before his departure on 21 January 1925 he gave his consent to the carrying out of a deed that the internal CC had contemplated for some time, namely a bomb explosion in central Sofia. As soon as Marek reached Vienna, he broached the subject with Dimitrov, who was already aware of the desire of the VO to perform a major act of violence. Initially, this had been intended as the signal for the uprising, but with the recent slow-down it was to stand alone as a spectacular statement of the Communists’ strength. Dimitrov had recently

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criticised the increasingly popular tactic of Communist hit-and-run squads undertaking political assassinations and dealing out revenge for the persecution of party members and sympathisers. Subsequently, Dimitrov always insisted that he had immediately reacted negatively – and consistently with his previously expressed views – to Marek’s query. Kolarov was also opposed to an isolated terrorist act.107 Yet somehow, in Marek’s letter to the CC in Sofia, Dimitrov was quoted as having consented to the plan. On 28 January, Kolarov reported to the ECCI that due to the unfavourable conditions the tactic of a Communist uprising in Bulgaria should be abandoned, and replaced by a compromise with the Agrarians and Zhekov’s ‘left generals’. The ECCI agreed that with little chance of a government of workers and peasants in the near future, the BKP(N) should cooperate with the rest of the opposition in order to improve its position, and then work for revolution in and beyond Bulgaria. 108 In a nutshell, the instigators of the events of September 1923 in Bulgaria were now resigned to a tactical U-turn. Initially Dimitrov showed signs of disagreeing with such a radical change, even though it was supported by his closest party associate in agreement with the ECCI. Significantly, the internal CC at first rejected the new line from Moscow, and protested about it to the BKF; but this was of little importance in the Comintern decision-making mechanism. Notably, the BKF under Dimitrov’s presidency concluded on 7 February that the uprising should go ahead even if no definite startingdate could be given. In Bulgaria, the VO ordered its detachments to be on full alert for the end of March. It is not surprising that Dimitrov, who had been absorbed in the organisation of the uprising, should be reluctant to drop the idea. On the other hand, he clearly envisaged a mass uprising as an antidote to the Communists’ expanding practice of separate terrorist acts in the country. This would explain why on 17 February Dimitrov wrote to Kolarov, voicing apprehension that the struggle might be deformed into anarchic terror and individual revenge, pointing out that the BKF was doing everything necessary to prevent such a development.109 Absorbed in the complex debate about the methods and goals of the BKP(N), Dimitrov did not worry excessively when on 14 March 1925 he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years’ imprisonment for his role in the September Uprising.110 The Fifth Plenum of the ECCI (21 March–6 April 1925) confirmed the view that the capitalist system as a whole was beginning to stabilise. Accordingly, the Bulgarian delegation agreed to remove the uprising from the Communist agenda, even though the Balkans were still considered a special case, where a revolutionary situation persisted. Dimitrov and Kolarov also insisted that the new outlook should be announced publicly, so as to split the Bulgarian bourgeoisie and favour the leftist forces.111 In a letter to the CC of 14 April they confirmed the latest views of the ECCI, and clearly specified that guerilla detachments should be disbanded – they stipulated that terrorist acts were ‘acceptable only in response to provocations’. 112 The latter phrase turned out to be relevant sooner than envisaged, as a disaster indeed befell the Bulgarian CC on 26 March, when most of its internal members were arrested or killed. It could be argued that an attack of such magnitude should not be ignored.

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Over the next three weeks the country was shaken by a series of violent acts. These included a failed attempt on the life of King Boris, and shortly afterwards the successful assassination of a well-known anti-Communist General. The first was blamed on the Communists; the second was committed by them. Even more dramatically, the murdered General’s funeral became the scene of unprecedented terrorism: on Holy Thursday, 16 April 1925, there was a massive explosion in Sveta Nedelya, the secondbiggest cathedral in central Sofia, which claimed 134 victims among the mourners, ranging from children to 12 Generals, although most members of the government were unharmed and the King himself was unexpectedly absent. Subsequently, Dimitrov was directly accused of giving the orders for the bombing of the cathedral, as noted in Marek’s letter from Vienna. This was apparently confirmed by the confessions obtained by police from the prominent activist, Tsola Dragoicheva113 – although the reliability of such a source is open to question. Dimitrov’s own correspondence and contacts point at least to vacillation with regard to the VO’s known terrorist intentions. At the same time, a number of influential local BKP(N) functionaries had become increasingly extremist in their approach, having worked on the ground in adverse conditions and borne the brunt of the government’s aggression. The disposition of forces was now the reverse of what it had been in the summer of 1923 – the Comintern was urging restraint, while the local leaders opted for radical action. The cathedral bombing led to the immediate imposition of a six-month period of martial law in Bulgaria. The beleaguered BKP(N) was decimated and paralysed by the ensuing government violence, in which many active members and sympathisers perished. Dimitrov’s brother Todor was among those killed without trial. Only three members of the internal CC remained alive and free. Dimitrov’s response to the bombing changed several times. On 18 April 1925, the FB declared that the outrage had highlighted the acute domestic political crisis and accused the government of provoking the Communists. Three days later, another public declaration refuted that the blast had been a premeditated signal for a general uprising. In internal discussions and writings, Dimitrov voiced disapproval in principle of the recent decline into anarchy. Yet, at the Balkan Commission of the ECCI on 23– 4 April he prevaricated, speaking of the special situation in the region.114 This overlapped with an extended plenary meeting of the BKF, where Dimitrov made a statement on the government terror in Bulgaria.115 He finally settled upon a formula which – while denouncing terrorist acts as such – insisted that Tsankov’s persecutions had led to the Communists blowing up Sveta Nedelya. He soon came to justify the Communist violence by invoking the regime’s ‘white terror’, and set out to draw the attention of European progressive circles to the latter trend. In late April 1925 Dimitrov was transferred to full-time work in Moscow, as a representative of the BKF at the ECCI. His official position was Head of the Balkan Operative Centre but the move might be seen as an attempt by the ECCI to keep the Bulgarian FB under closer supervision. Dimitrov initiated a campaign in defence of those persecuted in Bulgaria, writing numerous articles in the Soviet newspapers and in the Comintern’s multi-lingual publications. The goal was to attract the attention of

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European leftist political circles to events in Bulgaria and thus to exert pressure on the Tsankov government. One response was a visit to Bulgaria by Henri Barbusse who wrote a report of the terror and duly denounced it at a rally in Vienna towards the end of the year. In the summer of 1925, from Moscow, Dimitrov was trying to steer the Bulgarian Communists who had remained in Vienna, where a communications centre was maintained. He insisted on preserving links with the Agrarians of Stoyanov and Atanassov: this involved mainly handing over small sums from the party budget. Politically, this was approved by the Balkan Commission of ECCI, while the money came from the Krestintern. Although professing complete disillusionment with the leftist Agrarians, Dimitrov was loath to sever all links with them, as this would undermine the united front. At the same time, he was aware that the Agrarians still had detachments making forays into Bulgaria from abroad.116 The disasters of April 1925 precipitated lengthy soul-searching among the Bulgarian Communists. The FB called for a thorough revaluation of existing strategy and practice – which by default deflected its own responsibility; a second benefit of this approach was to place the FB above the internal leaders. Dimitrov – and to a lesser extent Kolarov – tried to promote the view that the drastic series of events had resulted from serious long-term problems in the coordination of the party hierarchy; they also underlined deficient understanding and implementation of Leninist revolutionary theory by the domestic leadership. A long meeting of Bulgarian Communists in Moscow between 30 July and 8 September 1925 reviewed the preceding three years. About 30 people attended, mostly Bulgarians working in the various divisions of the Comintern. The agenda and the participants were chosen by the ECCI. The erstwhile Foreign Bureau was reconstituted as the Foreign Provisional CC, and included Dimitrov, Kolarov, Marek and two other émigrés.117 The main report was delivered by Marek, as the person who had most recently come out of Bulgaria. Kolarov outlined future political tasks, and finally Dimitrov addressed the necessary organisational changes;118 he was allocated responsibility for reviving the BKP(N) and reorganising its cadres. Although he was clearly still the second-in-command to Kolarov, he was to supervise the remodelling of the party on the Bolshevik example. The Moscow conference carefully considered the past, and reached a consensus that terror tactics should be banned, as conspiracies were no substitute for mass mobilisation. It was agreed that the BKP(N) had made a succession of fatal errors in June and September 1923 and again in April 1925. However the gathering of émigrés did not pronounce on the causes of these errors. Two lines of reasoning were heard: a group around Lukanov and the youth leader Georgi Popov questioned the soundness of the course towards uprising since 1923,119 while Dimitrov was at the centre of the alternative view that the June 1923 neutrality with regard to Stamboliyski had not been a mistake, nor should it be seen as a logical extension of the whole previous policy. These theoretical arguments did not disguise the fact that the Moscow meeting was essentially an investigation into the actions that had allowed for, if not ordered the Sveta Nedelya explosion.

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The roles of Marek and Dimitrov were at the centre of a monumental quarrel. While Dimitrov maintained throughout that he had always been opposed to the planned atrocity, Marek kept changing his version. He confirmed that Dimitrov had been against the blast, but specified that Dimitrov only opposed terror that was not related to an uprising. Such a presentation of the issue was an evasion, because in January 1925, when Marek was communicating between Vienna and Sofia, the uprising had not yet been taken off the agenda, and so the VO could claim it had incorporated individual violence with longer-term strategy. But then Marek actually admitted that he had sent Dimitrov’s instructions approving the terrorist act to Bulgaria. Georgi Lambrev concurred in this, believing that the FB had been supportive of terrorism and had even directed the careful choice of targets. Another Communist youth activist, Petur Iskrov, maintained that he had held the disputed January letter in his own hands for three days; his understanding was that Marek said the bombing should go ahead, while Dimitrov said it could go ahead, a rather subtle difference in the circumstances. It was Dimitrov’s great achievement that all such statements indicting him were eventually downplayed, and soon disregarded. Marek ultimately threw in his lot with Dimitrov, and joined him in blaming the internal activists and above all the VO for refusing to abide by the directions of the FB. 120 He claimed that Dimitrov had voiced opposition to the bombing, but that this had been wrongly coded in the vital letter. Subsequently, this became the official party version – a decision against the planned act of terror had been taken in both Vienna and Moscow, but had not reached Sofia in time. From a culprit in the series of failures in 1923–5, Dimitrov managed to assume the role of chief rejuvenator of the BKP(N), proclaiming the crucial task to be that of ‘Bolshevisation’. Paradoxically, the stormy relations within the Bulgarian émigré community in Russia raised Dimitrov’s profile in the party. Kolarov, who by age, prestige and experience was the first among equals in the émigré leadership, seemed to detach himself deliberately from Bulgarian affairs and focused mostly on work for the Comintern. Dimitrov repeatedly wondered in the autumn of 1925 how it was possible for Kolarov to be so distant at such an important moment. Dimitrov, on the contrary, saw his international posts as a platform for his ambitions in his home organisation. He once again styled himself as the link between the Comintern and the BKP(N). Now, in accordance with the revised Comintern analysis of the stabilisation of capitalism, he directed the BKP(N) to reorient itself towards broadly democratic objectives and against Tsankov’s regime: armed struggle should be given up and a mass party built instead. Dimitrov’s attempt to settle into the sheltered if not very prominent position in Moscow was shattered by the brewing of internal struggle. He wrote to Kolarov that disappointment had led many party members to overstate the responsibility of the former FB. He insisted he was not panicking, but suggested the two of them should act to avoid trouble. The solution was found in the convening of more grass-roots meetings among the Bulgarian exiles, who would all have the chance to voice their opinions and air their grievances.

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Soon criticisms were coming from right and left and Dimitrov saw ‘the ideological foundations of the party shaken up as well as its organism out of shape’. 121 A strong movement against the FB re-emerged, citing the massive errors after the September Uprising and especially the pushing of the revolutionary line, which had led directly to the violent act of April 1925. The foremost proponents of this view were Lukanov and Popov. Marek had now become Dimitrov’s faithful supporter – he personally convened four meetings in Odessa to counter the allegations of Dimitrov’s culpability. Dimitrov himself delivered the opening report at one such meeting in Moscow on 18 October. In it he formulated all that he intended to claim with respect to the ‘terrible two years’ in Bulgaria. His thesis was that the grave mistakes could not be explained by the party’s past, as in fact the record of the BKP(N) was thoroughly revolutionary. This was attested to by numerous strikes and persistent militancy. Dimitrov’s alternative explanation was that of insufficient ‘Bolshevisation’ by which he meant the inability to translate propaganda into action. For instance, the 9 June neutrality contravened all previous resolutions of the CC to resist a potential rightist coup, but had been the product of ‘general fear and uncertainty’ to ‘shoulder the historic responsibility for a grand battle’. The initiative had been lost, yet the September Uprising ‘saved the honour and the future’ of the party and provided ‘a treasure for the history of the revolutionary movement’. Dimitrov also proposed that the subsequent strategy for uprising was correct, because the CC had never actually set a deadline for it; therefore it was not the course of action itself but the timing of its removal from the agenda that had become problematic. On the other hand, Dimitrov admitted to what he termed ‘the leftist deviation’, such as excessive reliance on guerilla detachments and terrorist acts. But he pressed on with the thesis that the ‘wild’ terror of the government generated ‘terror from below’, which in turn eventually led to the blast in Sveta Nedelya. The Comintern had advised that further mass struggle was necessary, but it had not dismissed the projected uprising, due to lack of clarity on the situation. Ultimately, Dimitrov categorically rejected any connection between the line on the uprising and ‘the leftist deviation’. Arrogantly, Dimitrov used this analysis to launch an attack on what he claimed was a bigger danger for the party, namely a ‘rightist deviation’, a new ‘liquidationist’ attitude as demonstrated by critics who rejected everything from the last two years and thus brought confusion and apprehension. Ominously, he stated that such people would be ruthlessly beaten.122 He envisaged mostly his main current opponent Lukanov, who responded to Dimitrov’s convoluted and verbose explanations by pointing out ‘that a lot of general talk had taken place for two and a half years’ but there was no genuine comprehension of the events and their origins. Going back to the 9 June coup, Lukanov believed that neutrality had been a colossal error, as the CC had failed to assess correctly the mood of the peasants but had stopped them from acting. Thus, the BKP(N) had prevented the opening of a civil war, which could have been used to bring about a government of workers and peasants. In his understanding, the error was even more profound, as the party had not only failed to appreciate that it needed the peasants in order to claim power but had deliberately antagonised and fought them. The Communist policy for a government of workers and peasants had

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intended to turn the BZNS’s social basis against its own party, and thus declare war on the Stamboliyski government. For Lukanov the September Uprising was provoked by an emotional reaction to the arrests: it began without a plan and without political allies. Even a strike had been impossible to stage, let alone an uprising. Yet, the party itself went on to generate failure because of unrealistic reports and inaccurate assessments of the domestic forces; the VO could not be solely blamed for this. One of his major points was that the Comintern had also been the source of misperceptions and misdirection: here he could not be farther from Dimitrov’s views.123 At the end of October 1925, Lukanov wrote to Stalin that the Moscow conference had been no more than a private meeting of those implicated in the September Uprising and the April attempt – they acted as judges on their own mistakes.124 Blaming the leaders of the September Uprising for a criminal adventure, Lukanov claimed that Dimitrov and Kolarov had hindered the investigation by the ECCI. Dimitrov labelled this approach factional activity – which was strictly forbidden under Comintern rules. Dimitrov suggested Lukanov’s insinuations should be investigated by a Bulgarian-affairs commission ‘so they get what they deserve from the very beginning’.125 With this, the two sides vying for position in the party were clearly delineated. The reorganisation of the Bulgarian Communist leadership involved the downgrading of the CC in Sofia to an Executive Committee, while the Foreign Provisional CC assumed pole position. The latter was to be based in Vienna, where Dimitrov was desperate to return and take charge. To one associate’s opinion that Dimitrov would prefer the safety of Moscow, the latter replied somewhat haughtily that he would not run from danger but would seek satisfaction in overcoming it. 126 However, this ambition was thwarted, as despite several appeals Zinoviev specifically stated that Dimitrov should remain in Moscow for safety reasons; there were already sufficiently qualified people in Vienna. To Dimitrov’s chagrin, it was eventually Kolarov whom the ECCI dispatched to Austria.127 By deliberately distancing Dimitrov from the BKP(N), the Comintern head indirectly commented on his current merits as a leader and sought to calm emotions in the Bulgarian Communist community. Another blow to the position Dimitrov had so painstakingly carved out for himself over the previous two years was the revaluation of the role of the BKF. Largely his creation, it continued to exist nominally in Vienna, but performed only logistical duties and aided the work of the Soviet special services among Macedonians, Croatians, Dobrudjans and Albanians.128 Several months earlier, Dimitrov himself had admitted that all the parties which constituted the BKF were in crisis. He believed that in particular the mistakes on the national and peasant issue by the Bulgarian party should serve as ‘a massive lesson’ for its neighbours. He also despaired of ‘the individualism of the bourgeois intelligentsia’ in Romania and ‘the lack of any ideological principles’ in Yugoslavia.129 Significantly, the Serb representatives at the BKF had spoken of a Bulgarian ‘yoke’ to highlight their displeasure at the hegemony of the Bulgarians in the BKF.130 Towards the end of 1925 it seemed that the very existence of the BKF was endangered, as Dimitrov was kept in Moscow: he used this as

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another chance to lobby for his transfer back to Vienna, nearer the Balkans. If the worst came to the worst, he suggested the reopening of a Balkan Bureau of the BKF in Vienna – which he saw as ‘a thousand times better’ than the complete end of the BKF. Throughout his campaign to be reinstated in Vienna, Dimitrov confirmed that the solution of all the problems encountered by the BKF required ‘listening and obeying the Comintern’. In March 1926, while different propositions were still being debated, he reiterated that ‘the cause of the BKF consisted of daily cooperation and fulfilment of the resolutions of the ECCI’. But the BKF was made redundant by the setting up of the Balkan Länder-secretariat of the ECCI in March 1926. 131 A member of this new body, but without any special role, Dimitrov seemed to be demoted with regards to the region. Over the next two years he used different occasions to raise the necessity of resurrecting the BKF in its previous form, with an executive body closer to the region and staffed not by Comintern functionaries but native people who had the confidence of their internal party leadership.132 It was precisely trust that Dimitrov was short of on most levels of his work. The ambivalence demonstrated by the ECCI was mirrored by attitudes from other directions. The tensions breeding among the émigrés were reflected onto him; these people were now caught between the impossibility of returning to Bulgaria, where they faced persecution, and the futility of remaining abroad in misery and for no apparent political reason. Dimitrov oversaw the transferring of refugees into the USSR, which was handled by the MOPR. He found it difficult to balance the institutional restrictions in arranging financial aid, accommodation and employment for the refugees, and the latter’s unrealistic expectations of comfortable jobs or further education in the first Socialist country. Soon only those whose physical survival was threatened were dispatched to the USSR, to which any unauthorised travel was treated as insubordination.133 Dimitrov understood that in such a dire situation it would be hard to preserve the authority of the leadership. Intent on installing comrades loyal to him in key positions, he worked for dispatching Anton Ivanov to head the group of Bulgarian Communists in Constantinople.134 The festering discontent among the émigrés acquired greater significance against the backdrop of the pessimistic picture emerging from Bulgaria. The reports pointed to chaos among the party’s ordinary members, lack of experienced cadres at the higher levels, as well as uncertainty and mutual distrust. Dimitrov was concerned that all this might provoke a ‘turn to the right’, which he had already detected among the syndicates. In addition, there were tensions with the leftist Agrarians with whom relations had deteriorated, if not been completely broken off.135 All these negative tendencies culminated – in Dimitrov’s own words – in the ‘abnormal’ relations between the Sofia and external centres. He knew well that the internal leadership had no confidence in their superiors abroad, and understood that this was motivated by two facts: first, the local activists resented being downgraded in the hierarchy and second, they laboured under the impression that it was Dimitrov who would direct them from afar. He was aware that the leaders at home were more lenient with respect to Kolarov, who should therefore take part in a meeting to iron out the disagreements. Dimitrov favoured another extended conference of Bulgarian

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Communists, and initially hoped it might be convened in southern Russia, where he had more chance of participating in it.136 It might be argued that by staying in Moscow Dimitrov was closer to the real centre of power at the Comintern. However, he still preferred a solid position in his own party to being a middle-ranking functionary in a large international organisation. He was working for the Organisational Department of the ECCI, coordinating the underground activity of various parties; he also contributed to the work of the Krestintern, Profintren and MOPR. As the Comintern was reorganised after its Sixth Plenum in February 1926, Dimitrov was placed at the head of the Polish-Baltic Länder-secretariat, as the new divisions were called. Although this was clearly a promotion, he was dealing with distant parties and places which were only of general interest to him. His dissatisfaction might explain why some of his colleagues from this period did not hold him in high regard. Otto Kuusinen claimed that Dimitrov only drank and chased women, and had little understanding of the work.137 Such a lifestyle might also be a reason for the serious medical problems Dimitrov now had: in May 1926, he found out that a heart attack was a real possibility. Ironically, the sentence of death by hanging he received in Bulgaria on 7 March 1926, for his role in the Sveta Nedelya atrocity, was the least of Dimitrov’s troubles. At the beginning of May 1926 the animosity towards Dimitrov reached new heights. He admitted that: The responsible comrades in Sofia display a savage malevolence towards the external centre. It is simply monstrous that . . . they hate and curse G[eorgi] D[imitrov], who went to make an uprising in a remote region . . . they accuse him of betraying the movement and remove him from leadership in Bulgaria.138

Dimitrov had little of substance to add to the lengthy explanations he had attempted the previous summer. He simply resorted to rhetorical argument: that the Sofia centre was inadvertently helping the Bulgarian regime and behaving in an essentially anti-Communist manner. He never admitted any personal errors, instead drawing attention to the acute crisis across the party; conveniently, he appealed for party unity.139 For a moment it seemed to Dimitrov in late May 1926 that ‘our question was resolved happily’, as the Balkan Länder-secretariat reviewed the Bulgarian situation without hearing from internal representatives – which Dimitrov had feared. However, by June 1926 the internal leadership had caught up, and appealed to the ECCI to look into the Bulgarian question further. Dimitrov’s correspondence with Marek reveals that he had managed to mislead the Comintern about the magnitude of the Bulgarian quarrel, having only admitted to ‘certain misunderstandings’. Because of this he warned Marek to ‘avoid private talks and never to relate personal issues which could not be repeated in official meetings’, as in the current climate at the ECCI ‘everything is turned into [political] capital’.140 This opinion also testifies to Dimitrov’s discomfort in his post.

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Dimitrov felt under attack from all sides. He was irritated even with Marek, who had not yet explained convincingly to the Sofia leaders the discrepancies in the notorious letter of January 1925 on the Sveta Nedelya bombing. He was appalled that Todor Lukanov had appeared in front of assembled Bulgarians in Moscow to deliver a paper on the history of the BKP(N), in which he naturally promoted his own interpretations. Finally, Dimitrov was totally mystified by the fact that Nikola Harlakov, a former ‘anarcho-liberal’ had also been given the opportunity to talk about this faction. Dimitrov saw this as effectively opening ‘a new discussion which was not only absolutely unnecessary but also under unfavourable conditions for us’. Tendentiously identifying his view with the majority of the party, he pointed out that giving a platform to dissenters was a colossal mistake, and castigated Marek for failing to observe their mutual decision to the contrary.141 Dimitrov tried to avoid further debates on recent party history, as he felt insecure and out of place; simultaneously, he was devising defence tactics, and in the summer of 1926 raised suspicions that ‘the internal centre is not secured from outside interference and provocations’.142 Despite all his efforts to regain some of the lost ground, through bureaucratic manoeuvres and rhetoric, the internal leadership voted Dimitrov, together with Marek, out of the CC.143 So his status was rather uncertain when in the late summer of 1926 he returned to Vienna, after almost 18 long months in Moscow. He took part in a Bulgarian Communist plenum between 21 September and 1 October 1926, fully prepared in Moscow and a substitute for a regular conference. The Vienna Plenum revisited the party’s activity between 9 June 1923 and 16 April 1925. A questionnaire demanded that all participants once again set out all the information they had on the tragedy. Notably, the blast was only partially condemned, as some activists acknowledged that it could have been useful as an introduction to an uprising. Further, the terrorist attack was blamed on the strategy adopted at the time, and so the guilt of individuals was somewhat dispersed. In this respect, it is interesting that Kolarov appealed on behalf of Dimitrov, reminding his colleagues that Dimitrov’s position in the BKP(N) would affect his standing in the Comintern. The Vienna Plenum rejected the no confidence of the Executive Committee in Sofia in Dimitrov, Kolarov and Marek. The émigré meeting even insisted that the Committee in Sofia had no authority to question the positions of Dimitrov and the others – for the reason that these positions had been confirmed by the ECCI. The plenum declared that just before the terrorist act the three had correctly informed the ECCI of the situation. In turn, the decisions taken by the ECCI and the BKF in the first quarter of 1925 were confirmed as correct and uncontaminated by ‘ultra-leftism’, the term increasingly used to brand the internal militants. Avoiding the fact that the Comintern had maintained the policy of an uprising, the emphasis was diverted to the warnings against excesses. Finally, a resolution was passed on the role of the key Bulgarian figures in the blast: it officially pronounced that Dimitrov and Kolarov had opposed it, while Marek on the whole had supported it. 144 Evidently, this was an attempt to whitewash Dimitrov and Kolarov by distorting their recent actions and diffusing their responsibility. Dimitrov was obsessed with clearing his image, even if only on paper, and here he received immense help from Marek, who apparently agreed

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to take a larger share of the blame. Marek was banned by the Vienna Plenum from holding top party positions, but for this he was compensated by Dimitrov’s continued patronage. Meanwhile, Dimitrov resumed the attack on Lukanov. Another of Dimitrov’s loyal supporters, Ivan Genchev-Boyan, who was also an NKVD recruit, proposed that Lukanov’s work at the MOPR be scrutinised as there were suspicions of working against the party and engaging in factional activity.145 At the Vienna Plenum, Dimitrov behaved more like an emissary of the Comintern than a party leader. He delivered a report about developments in the international Communist movement, including the US and Chinese parties, which had very little in common with the Bulgarian one. 146 More importantly, Dimitrov informed his compatriots of developments in VKP(B), and delivered a condemnation of Zinoviev and Kamenev. This was something he had undertaken to do, just before departing for Vienna, in a letter to Dmitry Manuilsky, a member of the CC of the VKP(B). Indeed, closely observing the machinations for Zinoviev’s removal from the position of Chairman of the Comintern in the autumn of 1926, Dimitrov wrote to the ECCI of the necessity of disarming the opposition among the wider Comintern apparatus. In his view this was becoming a serious disease for the whole Comintern, which should not be allowed to spread further. Remarkably, Dimitrov expressed the opinion that it was ‘hardly sufficient to deal only through psychotherapy . . . and that party surgery would be necessary’: ‘it might be necessary to amputate the rotten members of the VKP(B) and some sections of the Comintern so not to infect the whole organism.’ 147 Writing thus to Manuilsky, Dimitrov evidently registered his siding with the dominant group; he malevolently branded the minority as ‘counter-revolutionary’ and having committed ‘the biggest crime possible in the Communist world’. This ideological zeal was meant to secure benefits for Dimitrov’s personal cause among the contending Bulgarian factions. Quite transparently, Dimitrov identified himself with the correct course of the VKP(B), and his adversaries with the opposition. Dimitrov clearly needed and hoped for Manuilsky’s support – whether at the Vienna Conference, which the Russian was initially expected to attend, or at the ECCI. After the Vienna Plenum Dimitrov remained in the Austrian capital, closer to the BKP(N) although his membership in the latter’s leading body remained in dispute. He contributed to a new paper, Komunistichesko Zname (‘Communist Banner’). He recommenced activity at the BKF, though it was in reality obscured by the new Balkan Länder-secretariat. However much Dimitrov complained about the Länder-secretariat’s incompetence, the BKF was gradually phased out in tune with the reduced interest of the ECCI in the Balkans.148 This corresponded to the latest conclusions of the ECCI about the temporary and partial stabilisation of capitalism, to which the Vienna Plenum also subscribed. It was accepted that the prospects for revolution had dwindled, and so the Communists were re-directed to work among the masses, the labouring classes, and renewed attention to a united front with peasants and craftsmen. The Bulgarian Communists, and Dimitrov in particular, had reduced but never broken off contacts with the leftist Agrarians, who were always attracted by the possibility of financial help from the Krestintern. In October 1925, advocating the idea of a common Bloc of Labour to the familiar Atanassov and Stoyanov, Dimitrov had

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already hinted at potential Communist support for a purely Agrarian government. Yet the leftist Agrarians were hesitant about entering into such a specific and practical agreement, fearing for their own position within the BZNS.149 Reinstated in Vienna, in the early months of 1927, Dimitrov revived the idea for a Bloc of Labour, with a view to the Bulgarian parliamentary elections in May. Towards the end of April Dimitrov personally contacted Atanasov and Stoyanov, suggesting they should map out a programme of common actions in response to the ‘white terror’ and to ‘fascism’ in Bulgaria. His agenda also envisaged ‘exposing the rightist Agrarians’ and influencing the Agrarian newspaper. It was even suggested that the two peasant leaders should enter into formal ties with the Krestintern, although this was eventually to prove inexpedient.150 Dimitrov was once again attached to the Austrian Communist Party which he tried to guide with regards to the coming elections in Austria. On behalf of the Comintern, in April 1927 he claimed that the fast advance of capitalism would soon evolve into fascism. It was necessary to fight all the bourgeois parties, including the Social Democrats. Predictably, the focus of Dimitrov’s attention was the state of the BKP(N) where the internal tensions had become chronic. 151 Having survived the latest round of accusations, Dimitrov’s attitude was apparently hardening as to the methods needed to instil unity and discipline. In January 1927, he opined that one internal activist, a suspected provocateur, should be sent to Moscow ‘under the necessary benign excuse so he could be neutralised and get what he deserves’. The émigrés remaining in Yugoslavia continued to provide a breeding ground for discontent, as their hardship was unremitting and the prospects for transfer to the USSR meagre. Dimitrov could not offer a meaningful and practical response to the common dissatisfaction with the Communist leaders for mismanagement of funds and lack of interest, but repeated his ubiquitous general recipe for ‘methodical party work’.152 He was not in a position, in any event, where his advice counted for much among his compatriots. Almost always grouped with Kolarov, he had vocal opponents among the Bulgarian Communists, in and out of the country. This was glaringly confirmed at the clandestine Second Conference of the BKP(N) in Berlin between 8 December 1927 and 15 January 1928, the first forum on this scale since the Vitosha Conference more than three years earlier. A complete review of strategy and tactics for the whole of this period was on the agenda – which made for one of the most tumultuous meetings in the history of the party. Unlike the Moscow meeting, where they had been in control, here Dimitrov and Kolarov lost the initiative. Altogether resenting a new discussion on the past, they were forced into a defensive position facing grave accusations from younger Communists. Youth League activists from Bulgaria, such as Georgi Lambrev, Ilia Vassilev, Petur Iskrov and Nikola Kofardjiev, vigorously attacked the ‘old guard’. On occasion they went back more than a decade, for instance when questioning Kolarov’s stance at the Zimmerwald Conference. Their severest blow was reserved for what they called ‘the June leadership’, whose neutrality towards the 1923 coup was seen as the source of all subsequent evils for the party. 153 One other point of major debate centred on the admissibility of guerilla actions: the young radicals’ view was that these should not only complement an uprising, but could be undertaken in

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their own right. Finally, the youth leaders insisted that it was this conference that marked the beginning of the ‘Bolshevisation’ of the Bulgarian party. ‘Insufficient Bolshevisation’ was how Dimitrov himself, since the Moscow meeting in 1925, had been explaining the apparent inadequacies of the party’s course of action. Responding to the threat, Dimitrov accused the ‘young’ of inadmissible factional activities. Both sides in the dispute purported to be the true carriers of the Leninist tendency in Communism – each giving its own meaning of the term. Now that the division in the BKP(N) had been taken to the ideological level, Dimitrov was able to discuss mistakes while attributing responsibility to the party as a whole, and avoiding specific scrutiny of his own role. He appealed for criticism without actually himself engaging in it. Under pressure from the Comintern, the two sides passed a resolution emphasising party unity. Moreover, after the sharp debates and mutual finger-pointing a rather positive assessment for Dimitrov and Kolarov was publicised through the formula that ‘the cathedral blast was not an action of the party, or its CC, which had categorically rejected it’.154 The temporary compromise was reflected in the fact that Dimitrov and Kolarov were joined by Iskrov as a representative of the new forces in the FB. This was again acknowledged as the higher organ, which would decide on the political orientation of the party and supervise the five-member internal CC. The wing of the ‘young’ was successful not only because of its members’ vigour and their better grounding in the internal organisation, but also because they met with a benevolent attitude on the part of some Comintern officials. People like Béla Kun and Ossip Piatnitsky had little respect for Dimitrov and Kolarov, and took the opportunity to promote leftist Bulgarians, some of whom obtained positions at the Youth International. Crucially, the ‘young’ and the ‘old’ found common ground in the condemnation of those who were perceived to stand to the right of both. The Berlin Conference expelled Lukanov and Popov from the party, and even Kabakchiev was dropped from the CC. The treatment of Kabakchiev demonstrated the precariousness of the situation, and the exclusive self-preoccupation of all concerned. In the heat of the argument there had been flashes even between the two staunchest of partners, as Kolarov reminded Dimitrov that it had taken him a month to come round to the idea of the uprising in August 1923.155 Dimitrov too showed minimal concern for his old comrades. While his association with Kolarov was still beneficial, he was less than sympathetic to Kabakchiev’s plight. Dimitrov sensed the latter’s disappointment at being left in isolation by the Berlin Conference but claimed that ‘presently, his situation in our party is such that it is not appropriate to give him any political mandate whatsoever. We cannot increase the tensions and hinder the work of the CC because of this issue.’ Indeed, Dimitrov had no wish to worsen his own position by sticking up for Kabakchiev: it suited him to pretend that it was people like Kabakchiev who were the real ‘old guard’ while he himself was in step. To Kabakchiev’s hint that he might turn to the ECCI for clarification of his position, Dimitrov replied rather officiously that Kabakchiev was free to do so – but through the CC, as the rules stipulated. 156 Given such clearly malignant attitude to one of his oldest and most respected colleagues, it

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was hardly surprising that Dimitrov paid little attention to the exclusion from the Soviet CC of the internationally renowned Krustyu Rakovski, one of the early lights of Bulgarian Communism. Apart from the internal squabbles, the Berlin Conference sought to outline a course for the future. The ultimate goal remained a government of workers and peasants but the means of achieving it changed as the Bulgarians adopted the new Comintern prescription of a united front ‘from below’. The Communists should seek to spread their influence across all working classes and gather them around a Communist platform and under Communist control. Crucially, no agreements with any other political parties were allowed: practically all non-Communists were proclaimed to be fascist. To implement this strategy it was necessary to intensify the revolutionary struggle of ‘class against class’; and in the Bulgarian circumstances this meant that the BZNS, with whom the Communists and Dimitrov personally had been in constant if nominal cooperation since 1923, were now branded outright fascists or ‘undercover fascist collaborators’, according to which wing of the party they stood for.157 Soon after the Berlin Conference, on 6–7 March 1928, Dimitrov spoke to Stoyanov who – as if to confirm the predictions of the Comintern – expressed his readiness to cooperate with Tsankov’s moderate successor Alexandur Malinov. For this reason, Dimitrov urged the Comintern to send finance in order to activate immediately the leftist forces among the Agrarians. These forces had dwindled to a miniscule group headed by Georgi Dragnev, whose ambitions and readiness to cooperate with the BKP(N) seemed in reverse proportion to his skill and popularity in his own ranks. Yet, while Dragnev was looking for Communist help to strengthen his positions within the Agrarians, in an amazing distortion of Dragnev’s statements, Dimitrov recommended to the Peasant International that the leftist Agrarians should be urged to confront openly the moderate elements in their party as well as to participate in common electoral lists with the Communists.158 This was Dimitrov’s way of proving that he had completely taken on board the new Comintern course. A couple of months later, even this position was revised: Dimitrov approved a new policy document prepared by Iskrov and Kofardjiev, which stated that the Communists themselves should infiltrate the Agrarian Union as even the leftist Agrarians were actually ‘bearers of bourgeois tendencies’. Later in 1928 Dimitrov spent long periods in Moscow. Concerned with the unhealthy atmosphere among the Bulgarian political émigrés in Moscow, in April 1928 he gave some thought to the methods of disciplining the different factions that had emerged. Fond of classifying, he saw three groups of internal opposition: those who were antagonised by the circumstances of their life in misery, those surviving ‘petit-bourgeois elements’ who protested against the denial of individual freedom and of the right to criticise, and finally, ‘intellectual careerists’ who misused and incited the other two groups. Most pressing was the need to destroy the rightist ‘liquidationists’ around Lukanov. Dimitrov advocated educating and influencing each individual to get rid of the ‘petit-bourgeois muddle in their heads’; additionally, there could be punishments by both the Russian and the Bulgarian parties, and if neither worked – exclusion. After dealing with the right, the leftist moods should be tackled.159

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At roughly the same time the first arrests of Bulgarian émigrés in the USSR began, some 30 in 1928–9. Three were tried for their participation in the Sveta Nedelya bombing, including one held directly responsible for supplying the explosives. This could be seen as a last attempt to cover their tracks by the Soviet authorities, who were also clearly implicated.160 It is difficult to believe that Dimitrov was unaware of such a development, but he apparently chose to ignore it. In April 1928, Dimitrov took part in the Profintern Congress, where he was elected to the Executive Bureau, and three months later in the Comintern Congress, where he became a candidate-member of the ECCI. He spoke at both, repeating already established views of the Soviet leadership and the Comintern authorities. Attracting attention to the danger of fascism, he highlighted the special value of the Balkans as an imperialist base for plans against the Soviet Union; this analysis also saw the region as ‘a semi-colony’. He repeated the dogma, by now familiar, that the Social Democrats were no more than agents of the bourgeoisie, in fact ‘social fascists’ against whom a united front of the working class should be constructed.161 For three days from 30 August 1928 Dimitrov presided over the Eighth Conference of the BKF, delivering a long report on the history of the Communist movement in the region and the activities of the organisation itself. Dimitrov drew the frank conclusion that ‘a big mess, great uncertainty, no coordination among the Balkan parties’ reigned at the present time. To his mind this affected negatively all Communist work in the Balkans, as the cause of revolution could not be conceived in isolation in any Balkan state. As they were all interdependent, they could overcome the crisis together. Therefore, he appealed for the reinstatement of the BKF, and two months later was still writing to the ECCI regarding a budget for the BKF, sufficient to maintain four Executive Bureau members, a secretary and a communications officer. 162 In the latter half of 1928 Dimitrov travelled several times between Mocsow, Vienna and Berlin. One Bulgarian NKVD officer remembered meeting him in elegant cafés in the Ringstrasse and arranging for the posting of innocuous letters from China in order to mislead the police.163 Apparently Dimitrov’s conspiratorial methods were more effective than those of some of his younger comrades. In September 1928 the Austrian authorities caught Iskrov with compromising documents.164 This precipitated the reorganisation of the FB’s work, and in particular the transfer of several ‘young’ Bulgarians to Moscow. As this came in the wake of police disclosures of Communist activity in Bulgaria, it weakened the positions of the leftists. Dimitrov immediately seized the opportunity to lecture Iskrov and his group on conspiracy, the use of the party budget and other practical issues. It was no coincidence that Dimitrov put forward the idea that the FB should be able to contact directly the key district centres in the country, thus bypassing the internal CC.165 He also used the chance to bolster his position by insisting on a directive concerning the defence of the accused in the country. He was opposed to the Youth League, also known as the Komsomol, being officially labelled ‘the vanguard of the party’. At the same time he was quick to reject indignantly the rumours that he would use the situation for Iskrov’s ‘political murder’.166

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At the end of 1928 Dimitrov moved to Berlin, where a number of Cominternsupported operations, including the Bulgarian FB – had relocated, as Vienna no longer seemed a safe haven for the Communists. The Swiss Jules Humbert-Droz claimed that Dimitrov was removed from Moscow for showing rightist tendencies. 167 However, it is more likely that the ECCI, to which Dimitrov had proven his loyalty – but not his usefulness at headquarters – was looking for a suitable position for him away from Moscow, where much negative feeling had accumulated against him. Once again, the Presidium of the BKF tagged along; yet Dimitrov himself admitted that ‘all events, ideas and decisions’ came from him personally, and he had scarce contacts with the constituent parties.168 Initially, Dimitrov took on specific tasks for the Comintern. In December 1928 he oversaw the exclusion of Heinrich Brandler and August Thalheimer from the German Communist Party, whose internal tensions Dimitrov had discussed with Clara Zetkin on a retreat in Kislovodsk a few months earlier. The German opposition were considered Trotskyites, and felt the repercussions of the ongoing power struggle in the VKP(B); among their anti-party ‘crimes’ was the fact that they had gone ahead with launching the uprising in Hamburg in October 1923, despite last-minute Comintern orders to the contrary. It was more than ironic that among their judges was Dimitrov, who had also launched a doomed revolt in 1923, intended as part of the same revolutionary wave. Interestingly, the German dissenters were now branded ‘right opportunists’ for their support of Bukharin and advocacy of cooperation with the Social Democrats. All of this was vital experience for Dimitrov, who learned a great deal about the internal dynamics between the VKP(B), the Comintern and foreign Communism. It was also a useful precedent for developments within the Bulgarian party. Dimitrov proposed that internal crises in the Communist parties showed that ‘it is not healthy to underscore the position of only one person as a leader but instead . . . a collective leadership should be set up’.169 In March 1929 Dimitrov was allocated a post at the West-European Bureau of the Comintern, first in support of its head Wilhelm Knorin and then, a month later, himself taking charge.170 His main task was liaison with and monitoring of the European Communist parties; one of the immediate initiatives was the organisation of an international day against war to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the First World War. Despite securing and even advancing his position at the ECCI, Dimitrov remained under severe attack in his own party. A meeting in the autumn of 1929, the so-called Second Plenum of the CC of the BKP(N), took place in Berlin between 15 August and 23 October. In an almost déjà-vu fashion, Dimitrov and Kolarov once again clashed with the ‘young’ faction on past and present issues of party policy. They were castigated for insufficient work at the grassroots and for their ‘right deviationist’ stance, as evidenced by their cooperation with Agrarians regarding a united front and their tolerance towards people like Lukanov. Iskrov’s group insisted that the Communists themselves should carry out all the work among the masses, set up village committees for mobilising the peasants and organise Communist factions in all the political and public organisations in which they were involved, and thus seek to take them over or

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destroy them.171 They adopted an extreme rhetoric, calling for urgent revolutionary propaganda and preparation, including terrorist activity and strikes. They insisted the ‘old’ leaders should simply give way to them. Dimitrov was among those accused of not being through-and-through Bolsheviks – as was clear even from the fact that in the abortive September Uprising the goal had been a government of workers and peasants rather than a Soviet-style dictatorship of the proletariat.172 The ‘young’ prevailed rather conclusively, as Iskrov replaced Kolarov as editor of Komunistichesko Zname and Vassilev took charge of the illegal Communist apparatus in Bulgaria. Dimitrov was demoted to candidate-member of the CC – the lowest point in his Communist career, and the worst indictment of his activity over the past two decades.

3 FROM THE MARGINS TO ‘MASTER’ OF THE COMINTERN, 1930–9

At the beginning of the 1930s Georgi Dimitrov was an unlikely candidate for international fame, though he was of course well-known among the officials of the Comintern and its various auxiliaries, for whom he had been working for almost a decade. Heading the Comintern’s centre of operations for Western Europe, he was also a familiar figure among a diverse group of professional revolutionaries. Yet his aspirations remained focused on his native Communist party where he was in a rather unenviable position in the late 1920s. It was a paradox that just as Moscow judged him trustworthy of overseeing several foreign parties his own Bulgarian comrades questioned his Bolshevik credentials.

* * * Even though the Berlin Plenum had tipped the balance in the Bulgarian Communist Party in favour of the ‘young’ leftists, the Kolarov–Dimitrov tandem had been at the top for too long to give up without fight. As a review of the BKP(N) by the Balkan Länder-secretariat was due early in 1930, there began one of the most vicious rounds of in-fighting among the Bulgarian Communist leadership-in-exile. This was triggered by the CC members Iskrov, Kofardjiev and Lambrev, attempting to ensure that they all three attended the forthcoming review, while specifically proposing Dimitrov’s exclusion. On 6 January 1930 Kolarov sent a memorandum to the ECCI protesting against such ‘ganging up’ against Dimitrov. It was not surprising that Kolarov – whose attention had previously easily strayed away from Bulgarian affairs – now sprang into action. His memorandum was coordinated with Dimitrov, and in fact was submitted not long after the latter had returned to Moscow for a period of political consultations and medical examinations. But Kolarov also feared that his own standing would be much more vulnerable if his political partner was further isolated within the Bulgarian CC. The ‘young’ were now striving to consolidate their 1929 successes in Berlin and to secure political and institutional confirmation by the ECCI. However, they apparently misjudged the ‘old guard’s’ fighting spirit, networking skills and finer understanding of the mechanisms of the Comintern. The disagreements between ‘old’ and ‘young’ had already been recorded in multiple statements, and the recent memorandum raised nothing new of substance. It was so contentious because of the secret manner of its submission, which generated a long and complex polemic. Accusations of factionalism, misinterpretation of ideology and misdirection of policy were hurled at both sides and – occasionally in the heat of

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the argument – even within each side.1 The two groups were fighting for dominance over the Bulgarian party, but given the tradition of splits and purges, their own fate was also at stake. Iskrov and Kofardjiev promptly termed Kolarov’s memorandum ‘an outrageous document’, wasting no time in producing their own address to the ECCI, in which they stepped up the attack, especially against Dimitrov. He and Kolarov were jointly accused of a procession of errors with regard to the ‘rightist’ wing of the party. The two had allegedly concealed opportunism, then refused to fight it and eventually themselves had become its exponents. Equally, they were castigated for underestimating the political and economic crisis in the capitalist world as a whole and for ignoring the drift towards fascism of the Social Democrat and Agrarian parties, in Bulgaria in particular.2 In the resulting fracas, Georgi Dimitrov once again tried to carve out a special position for himself. He sought to project objectivity and reason, appealing for consideration of the whole party’s interests. It was obvious he could expect no concessions from the ‘left sectarians’, but he left himself room for manoeuvre by suggesting he did not identify completely with Kolarov either. In fact, he did not even explicitly back Kolarov at the meeting where ‘the outrageous document’ was revealed. And if this might be explained as a tactical step, a certain ambivalence was lastingly adopted by Dimitrov in the ongoing internal feud. On 7 February 1930, adding to the paper trail generated by Kolarov’s memorandum, Dimitrov himself wrote to the ECCI. He warned that Kolarov’s secret submission might increase the general lack of confidence within the Bulgarian CC. At the same time he defended Kolarov from allegations of rightist opportunism and defeatism, and insisted that Kolarov remained in the Bolshevik nucleus of the BKP(N). He also rejected Iskrov’s intimation that the ‘young’ were the sole Communist representatives abroad with genuine grassroots support in Bulgaria.3 Apparently, Dimitrov was neither satisfied with simply a brief statement nor certain that he would have the chance to speak at the review session. Within ten days of his earlier document, racing to have the last and longest say on the matter before the Comintern’s crucial appraisal, he penned a verbose report on the state of the BKP(N).4 In 32 typewritten pages he detailed the key developments since 1926, which he saw as the moment when the party had overcome its past failures and stepped out in true Bolshevik style. Dimitrov reiterated endlessly the view that on the whole the situation in Bulgaria had been assessed correctly and Communist policy adequately elaborated. He credited all of this to the solid Leninist core of the party – which was where he firmly placed himself. In line with his previous explanations, Dimitrov also claimed for himself the special role of having been invariably the source and stimulus for the adoption of correct Bolshevik views. He reminded his international comrades that it had been his personal theoretical achievements, as recorded in articles for the journal Fédération Balkanique, that had moved the rest of the Bulgarian Communist leadership to shed their mistaken view of the Balkans as a semi-colony of the imperialist powers and to reconsider their inappropriate attitude to the peasants with middle-sized holdings.

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Although long-winded and somewhat repetitive, Dimitrov’s report never strayed far from his main assertion that at present the CC had been taken over by inexperienced youths who were out of touch with the party’s rank-and-file. He pointed the finger specifically at Iskrov, Kofardjiev and Lambrev but also mentioned others who had recently risen quickly through the party hierarchy inside Bulgaria. Dimitrov acknowledged that the exile or arrest of many older Communists had propelled a number of new activists to the top; but all the same he criticised the latter harshly for not understanding the particular circumstances of their own advancement and therefore seeking to remould and redirect the party in their own image. They mismanaged work and concentrated resources in the hands of a few untested comrades. This left the impression that the older members were unable to complete the same tasks, and encouraged a kind of avant-garde belief that the Komsomol was a more reliable revolutionary force than the Communist party proper. Dimitrov was particularly scathing towards what he termed ‘bookishness’, i.e. promoting intellectuals who could ‘speak nicely and write correctly but had not grown up and fought amongst the masses and had no direct political experience’. Such people moved the centre of the party’s activity towards endless debates about its past, including constant reinterpretations of the directives of the Berlin Conference, claiming that only then – and under pressure from them – had the BKP(N) actually been converted into a Bolshevik-type party. Dimitrov concluded that instead of focusing on reinvigorating and consolidating the party, Iskrov and his supporters were acting in a ‘sectarian’ and ‘intellectual’ manner on issues of both policy and ideology. They were intent on further fracturing the party’s nucleus of older, proven leaders, and so had opened a battlefront at the core of the FB. That was why at every step they were looking for artificial arguments in support of their fundamentally flawed theses. They demonstrated the ‘stupidest prejudice’: that any party activist who had already become prominent before the events of September 1923 personified, by this very fact, unacceptable Social Democrat remnants in the BKP(N). It was this aspect of the ‘young’ doctrine that Dimitrov found most unpalatable and most harmful to his own position: his revolutionary roots were questioned while his ability to adapt was presented as hypocrisy. These were lethal charges – and particularly damaging to someone who had indeed displayed true radicalism, albeit mixed with a significant degree of flexibility, throughout his Communist career. Dimitrov could never accept the proposition that membership of the party from the time of the Narrows led axiomatically to an inherent inability to Bolshevise. He could not deny his past actions, which he had spent years justifying – but he did not wish to give up his ambitions either: it would mean degrading his whole existence and destroying his political persona. He had already observed this happening to Kabakchiev – in whose downfall he played a small part. In his own report, Dimitrov mentioned that Kabakchiev had not been sincere when officially agreeing with the changes in party policy and had remained an unreformed Social Democrat at heart. Dimitrov did not call for tolerance or appeal for consensus: he wanted the leftists out of the party, or at least banished from the lead, just as they were striving to

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eliminate him. He opposed both leftist and rightist ‘deviations’: according to him the Iskrovites should aim their zeal not towards imaginary opportunists but towards the real rightist menace, as represented by Lukanov. Dimitrov even used this allegation to fight back against the ‘young’, proposing that their mistake in choosing a target was in effect severely holding back the process of Bolshevisation of the party. For the moment, Dimitrov saw these ‘left sectarians’ as the most harmful elements among Bulgarian Communists; it was certainly the case that they posed the most threat to his own position. He also accused the ‘young’ of mechanically transposing the struggle in the VKP(B) across to the Bulgarian party. Even Kolarov did not escape censure for ‘numerous mistakes’, although Dimitrov reserved a milder tone for his older colleague. In this lengthy exposé Dimitrov had very little to say about his own responsibility for the unsavoury developments among the party leadership. Self-criticism, an established vehicle for political and personal change in the Communist parties, was applied very sparingly in this case. He acknowledged nothing more than having reacted belatedly to the mistakes of Kolarov and Iskrov, and to the ‘sectarian’ activities of the leftists. This was explained by being overwhelmed with work at the BKF and subsequently the West-European Bureau (WEB). Where Dimitrov tried to outsmart his detractors was in not simply listing his views and his concerns but instead, having solid experience of the internal workings of the Comintern committees, concluding his opus by outlining a range of specific, concise proposals that could be readily adopted by the ECCI. On the whole, these confirmed previous resolutions on ‘the Bulgarian question’ and were so formulated as to best suit Dimitrov’s personal interests. Most importantly, he suggested the enlargement of the FB to five members and the reinforcement of the internal CC with Bulgarian émigrés currently in the USSR. Dimitrov was of course hoping that those coopted into the leading bodies would be chosen from among those whom he considered the ‘healthy elements in the party’ – and he would be involved in the selection process. He also insisted that deviationists of both the Lukanov and Kabakchiev stamp should be reprimanded once again. Crucially, the ECCI was asked to emphasise that the ‘left sectarians’ remained the clique most dangerous for party unity at that time. Specifically, the ECCI should express a negative attitude to the formation of guerilla detachments, as it distracted the masses from genuine revolutionary activity.5 In a nutshell, Dimitrov was once again appealing to the Comintern for approval and support; as one of its sections, the Bulgarian party was obliged to abide by the judgement of the ECCI. Although this institution had placed its confidence in Dimitrov continuously since 1923, he had been repeatedly challenged from within the party. But every reopening of the in-fighting in the Bulgarian party was increasingly difficult: the onus was on Dimitrov’s rivals not solely to prove his failures but also to convince the Comintern that it too had taken the wrong view on Bulgarian matters. Three days after he had made known his views, Dimitrov had a chance to expand them in person at an enlarged meeting of the Presidium of the ECCI. However, this was no more than a hearing, while the full inspection of Bulgarian affairs carried on into August 1930. Dimitrov left Moscow at the end of February and, despite his requests, was not allowed to return to make another presentation. His letters indicate

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that he was not even fully updated on the continuing deliberations, as the ECCI only publicised its final resolutions and Kolarov was not the most regular of correspondents. Working in Berlin, Dimitrov felt isolated and often frustrated at the impossibility of being closer to the decision-making centre of Bulgarian affairs. At this juncture Soviet Russia – and Moscow in particular – was the ideological, political and physical hub of the Bulgarian Communist movement. In Bulgaria, the number of active Communists was smaller than that of the émigrés in Russia. With a core of around 2,000, the latter formed compact groups in the bigger cities and were immersed in the affairs of their native party, of which they remained members; the idea that the Bulgarian FB should relocate to Moscow therefore made sense. In the summer of 1930, the move was supported by the ‘sectarians’, who had followers among the exiles and in the Bulgarian representation at the ECCI. This was part of the onslaught on the older leadership and as such vehemently opposed by Dimitrov, who stood to lose the most from such a change. He did not deny that at present the FB was inactive, indeed paralysed, but simultaneously argued that a move to Moscow would ultimately destroy it. He put forward the claim that the FB was by definition required to be as near Bulgaria as possible and to maintain regular links with the internal activists as well as repatriate experienced émigré Communists who would help reinvigorate the whole organisation. This was all the more pertinent as the situation in the country remained unfavourable to the BKP(N), and its leaders were in constant danger. 6 But it was not entirely clear why coordination and communication would be better managed from Berlin and not Moscow, since the latter had multiple and long-established channels into Bulgaria. Communist émigrés in Central and Western Europe hardly matched in number and engagement those in the Soviet Union. Yet, were the FB to be transferred to Moscow, it would most certainly be overshadowed by the Bulgarian representation at the ECCI. Such a prospect was extremely unpalatable for Dimitrov who was suspicious of any initiatives that came from the ‘young’. The issue added to the seriousness of the internal quarrel. In early August, nervously expecting the Comintern’s ruling, Dimitrov again threw accusations at his opponents – of practically suspending the FB, and of misleading the domestic CC. He was also increasingly impatient with Kolarov, and some letters hinted that even the latter was sporadically siding with ‘sectarian’ practice. But on the whole, despite frequently assuming a patronising tone in correspondence with Kolarov, Dimitrov was careful not to pick a full-blown fight with such an important and longstanding ally.7 Kolarov too was going through a rough time. He had become the focus of many specific allegations and general frustrations among the Bulgarian diaspora in the Soviet Union. He appeared at endless meetings where he was blamed to his face for a wellrehearsed list of errors committed by the ‘old’ Narrow leadership and by him personally. This was fuelled by ‘mile-long articles’ expanding the opinions of the ‘young’ in Bulgarian-language and Comintern publications – which in turn influenced the views of many Bulgarian Communists.8 So heated did tempers become at times that at one émigré meeting Kolarov was booed and his briefcase tossed out of the

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window.9 His response was to accept some liability for the failures of party policy and to seek rehabilitation through self-criticism. Indeed, in the second half of 1930 Kolarov spend much time exposing his past and current shortcomings. He admitted to insufficient comprehension of the differences between the Narrow Bulgarian Socialists and their contemporary Russian Bolsheviks; he retrospectively disapproved of his stance towards the so-called ‘Zimmerwald Left’ in the Second International; he lamented the party’s refusal to take sides in respect of the Soldiers’ Uprising; and so on, until he even had to retract statements he had made at the Second Berlin Conference. Not least, he had to perform this self-flagellating routine at one of the ECCI’s Bulgarian hearings. Lower-profile associates of Dimitrov, such as his brother-in-law Vulko Chervenkov and Marek, were also subjected to a round of close, often petty, scrutiny and had to take recourse in self-criticism. Nothing of this sort took place in the Bulgarian Communist cells outside the Soviet Union: Dimitrov, by virtue of his absence from Moscow, was therefore spared one of the most unpleasant aspects of this phase of party in-fighting. After the protracted year-long build-up, the verdict of the Comintern was equivocal and disappointing. Essentially, the ECCI endorsed the outcome of the Berlin Conference of 1928 and rejected the decisions of the latest, Berlin Plenum of 1929. This could be considered a positive development for the ‘old’ leaders, but it was not an unconditional success. Going back in history, the ECCI generally approved the tactics of the Narrow Socialists in Bulgaria but also declared that Blagoev’s party had not been Leninist.10 As both ‘old’ and ‘young’ were criticised, each could choose what suited them from the ECCI’s pronouncements. The ECCI confirmed many of the grievances held against Dimitrov and Kolarov but still abstained from demoting them completely. On the other hand, the radicalism of the ‘young’ was much more in tune with the Comintern’s current course, but they had yet to prove themselves. Both groups declared adherence to the doctrine of ‘class against class’ adopted at the Sixth Congress of the Comintern; this postulated that the Communists, as sole representatives of the proletariat, should refuse to cooperate with other political formations, practically all of whom were capitalist in nature. Both ‘old’ and ‘young’ in the BKP(N) strove to be identified with such thinking. For its part, the ECCI neither put an end to the quarrels nor could eradicate overnight the mutual animosity that had accumulated within the Bulgarian party. The vicious circle of criticism and self-criticism continued, as each side went on to prove that despite its own mistakes, it was the errors of its opponents that had been the fatal ones for the party.11 Just how inconclusive the ECCI deliberations had been is demonstrated by the fact that the ‘left sectarians’, despite the substantial rebuke they had received, pressed on with their anti-establishment agenda. Shortly afterwards, Dimitrov was retained as merely a candidate-member of the CC, but Kolarov was dismissed as Bulgarian representative at the Comintern and replaced with the ‘young’ Georgi Lambrev. This step was backed by some Comintern functionaries, such as Béla Kun, a known radical, and Ossip Piatnitsky. The substantial changes in personnel were also supported by

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leading activists inside Bulgaria, who were not only militant in their outlook but also the most scornful of the Dimitrov–Kolarov duumvirate. In December 1930 in Sofia, the Third Plenum of the Bulgarian CC gave its approval to the theoretical postulates, revolutionary rhetoric and activism of the ‘young’.12 Such developments were profoundly exasperating for Dimitrov. So far, his success in presenting his record as both moderate and revolutionary, and above all corresponding to the Comintern line, had earned him Moscow’s support. This was what had sustained him throughout the prolonged period of internal challenges, and in turn had justified his positions within his native party. The discussions in 1930 were the first instance of Dimitrov’s continuous loyalty to the Comintern being less than fully reciprocated, and thus indicated how profound the rifts in the Bulgarian party had become. Bulgarian affairs dominated Dimitrov’s political persona. But while for most of 1930 ‘the Bulgarian question’ remained to an extent suspended, in anticipation of the Comintern’s verdict, Dimitrov was called back to duty as head of the WEB. Among the first events on his agenda was the European Peasant Congress, which had been in the making for over a year after the Communists had launched the initiative at the International Anti-fascist Congress in Paris in 1929. Ex officio, Dimitrov was the main coordinator, even if his role was more behind the scenes rather than on the tribune. During his sojourn in Moscow at the beginning of the year he had updated the ECCI on preparations for the convention and consulted on the drafts of its main documents. The Peasant Congress was staged by the Comintern and its Agrarian auxiliary, the Krestintern. It opened on 27 March 1930 in Berlin, hosted by the German Communist Party. The congress revolved around the theme of the necessity of workers and peasants joining in a common struggle against the rise of fascism. This had been an ongoing concern since the early 1920s, and a prominent aspect of the united-front policy, but it stood uncomfortably beside the newest doctrine of ‘class against class’ and the unfaltering identification of the Agrarian organisations as wholesale fronts for fascism. Mirroring this fundamental dilemma, the congress struggled to elaborate a practical approach which both attracted peasants to left-bloc cooperation and discredited existing Agrarian leaders. The discussions centred around the so-called ‘leftist’ Agrarians and their relations with the Communists. A number of predictable declaratory documents were adopted but this was the last big effort in this direction. Less than a year later, the Krestintern was dissolved – a clear admission of the futility of Communist efforts with respect to peasants.13 Events on a smaller scale also demanded Dimitrov’s attention, and often his attendance in person. In June 1930, again in Berlin, he presided over an international conference of Communist youth and in the following October oversaw a Communist conference in Alsace-Lorraine. He travelled frequently, liaising regularly with the WestEuropean Communist parties and guiding them through common activities, such as an anti-war demonstration that took place on 1 August across a number of countries. He also monitored the parties’ individual progress: for instance, in November, having followed the performance of the Swedish Communists in the parliamentary elections, Dimitrov criticised them for ‘insufficient mobilisation of the broad masses’.14

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The routine continued the following year – with trips across Europe, meetings with various Communists leaders, directives received from Moscow and reports sent back. Dimitrov’s busy schedule is evident in the month of June 1931, when he attended the congresses of the Polish Communists in Berlin, the Austrian in Vienna, the Dutch in Amsterdam, the Danish in Copenhagen and the plenum of the Swiss CC in Basel.15 By most accounts, Dimitrov executed his responsibilities conscientiously and enthusiastically. He was undoubtedly aware that the status of a Comintern official gave him a standard of work and living which he was unlikely to achieve merely as a member of the Bulgarian Communist leadership. His everyday existence was calm and comfortable; the occasional claim made later that he lived the high life at the Comintern’s expense is open to dispute, 16 though there is sufficient proof that in the early 1930s he was elegantly dressed, had pleasant lodgings with middle-class families and visited smart restaurants.17 To some extent, all this was necessary in the interests of secrecy. After 1929 Dimitrov posed as a foreign freelance writer, for instance as the Swiss Rudolf Hediger. He claimed different nationalities according to the circumstances, although his deficiency in languages must have been a hindrance; nevertheless, his style and habits had to project the image of an intellectual with numerous social and professional contacts. Meanwhile, the Comintern looked after the welfare of its employees: during his visits to Moscow Dimitrov had access to the Kremlin’s medical services and recuperated at leading Soviet resorts such as Kislovodsk and Mar’ino. However, Dimitrov repeatedly declared a desire to devote himself exclusively to the Bulgarian Communist movement, which shows at least a slight dissatisfaction with his international work. He preferred to weaken his positions at the Comintern rather than give up his ambition for a central part in the Bulgarian party. In March 1931 he applied formally to be relieved of Comintern duties so as to be able to concentrate fully on Bulgarian affairs. Even though Dimitrov raised the matter several more times, the ECCI did not grant his wish. If his pleas were not a pose by which to stress his devotion and to demand more inclusion in the conduct of Bulgarian affairs – and there is no evidence for this – then the lack of understanding from the ECCI must have been seriously frustrating. Suffering from his exclusion from the Bulgarian CC and FB, Dimitrov seems to have re-appraised his standing in the party. Since he had been unable to prevail over the ‘young’, he made attempts to join them, or at least to compromise with them. And so in May 1931 a sense of renewal appeared in the internal party atmosphere, as Dimitrov and some of the ‘young’ talked about the necessity of working together. It was recognised that their disagreements revolved around the differences between the Narrows and the Bolsheviks: if the issue were clarified there could be scope for further cooperation and consolidation.18 Dimitrov was convinced that the opportunity now presented should be seized before new rifts appeared. Here he was probably making a virtue of necessity – after all, these talks had only occurred after long years of bitter disputes. Nevertheless, the ‘young’ had not managed to get rid of Dimitrov, nor Kolarov, so they also stood to benefit from mutual accommodation. This temporary equilibrium lasted for more than

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a year, and even encouraged Dimitrov in early April 1932 to express his readiness for self-criticism on the divisive issue of Bolshevisation. This never actually happened, but the statement itself seemed to sustain his position for the time being. Simultaneously, the attacks of the ‘young’ eased up, possibly because some of their senior activists made a serious faux pas in Berlin in September 1932. Another source of worry, this time personal, was the state of his health, about which he was becoming something of a hypochondriac. In January 1930, it was revealed that he was suffering from arterial sclerosis, lung emphysema and cardiovascular complications, due to a preceding bout of influenza.19 Added to this was the stress caused by the fast-progressing mental illness of his wife, Ljuba, from whom he had been effectively separated for some time. She had last accompanied him in Vienna in September 1928, and after that had remained in Moscow. Initially, she had worked at the Krestintern; her close friend during this period was the wife of a rising Bulgarian Communist star, Traicho Kostov. But after 1930 she could no longer look after herself, and moved to a hospice.20 One of the most sorrowful personal letters Dimitrov ever wrote at this time was addressed to Kolarov, and in it he recalled that: Sick ideas torment her incessantly. The other day she tried to damage her eyes as she believed that she was destined to be blind, deaf and mute; she had been ‘ordered’ to poke out her eyes, cut her tongue and damage her ears.

In evident grief, Dimitrov asked his comrade to visit Ljuba in her sanatorium and to do everything he could ‘to alleviate her tragic fate’. Dimitrov confessed that he could not even meet the expenses for Ljuba’s care, as he was also helping his old mother and Ljuba’s paralysed brother.21 Underlying the misery, there is also a sense of detachment in these lines: they convey an impression that he had resigned himself to the decline in his relationship, and accepted the virtual loss of a wife who could no longer be a constant presence and support in his life. Meanwhile, in Vienna and Berlin, he had liaisons with different women. Documents show that he was involved with at least two at the same time. Ani Krueger and Klara Mienner told similar stories: they had met Dimitrov in 1926, and knew him as the writer Dr Jan Shaafsma. They never visited his rooms but usually enjoyed his company in cafes and inns. They knew he often travelled abroad and appeared well-off. He was polite and generous, often brought them presents, including clothes and jewellery; the divorced Frau Krueger received chocolate for her children. 22 She was Dimitrov’s principal friend but she was insecure about their personal relationship, worrying that she might be pushed aside by another woman. It was also in the late 1920s that Dimitrov met Rosa Fleischmann, one of his aides in Austria, and was introduced to her family. The WEB had relocated to Berlin on the eve of crucial economic and political events. Dimitrov witnessed at close quarters the onslaught of the Great Depression in 1929, the final convulsions of the Weimar Republic and the advent of the Nazi party, which shot from obscurity to a significant parliamentary position after 1930. Of course, in well-worn Comintern language, Dimitrov had already been warning against

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the rise of fascism for a decade. But the Comintern saw the radicalising of German politics as confirming the prophecy of a renewed crisis of capitalism, and thus providing the rationale for its ‘class against class’ tactics. While ostensibly fighting fascism, the German Communist Party (KPD) under the radical Ernest Thälmann sought to undermine the influence of the German Social Democrats, who had dominated government until 1930, and thus qualified unreservedly for the Communist label of ‘social fascists’. Dimitrov worked closely with Thälmann to capture the vote of the growing number of unemployed and to build up the Communist paramilitaries. It was easy to believe that the Communists were on the right track: in September 1930 their vote increased dramatically, mostly at the expense of the Social Democrats. The extremism and inherent contradictions of Communist policy were vividly illustrated by the fact that in Prussia in July 1931 the KPD effectively backed the Nazis against the Socialist provincial government. Simultaneously, across Germany there were intense and increasingly violent clashes between the brown-shirts and bands of Communists, which Dimitrov rightly took for signs of an increasingly destabilised situation. Applying the prevailing Comintern doctrine, he concluded that the German proletariat should engage in a fight for the final destruction of the bourgeois dictatorship. This was exactly what the ‘left sectarians’ advocated with regard to Bulgaria, further proof that his continued animosity towards them was based on personal rivalry rather than grave ideological divisions. A set of notes Dimitrov made in April 1931 on the Third Plenum of the Bulgarian CC illuminated his thinking on the practical steps to be adopted by the Communists in what they believed was a deepening social and political crisis in Bulgaria. The country was indeed going through serious economic difficulties, which were compounded by the Great Depression. While the regime had softened under Tsankov’s successor, Andrey Lyapchev, the latter was unable to assert his authority fully in relation to the King, the Assembly and even his own party. A sense of instability prevailed due to continuing Macedonian terrorism and the fact that most political formations were increasingly volatile, often splitting and re-grouping around different leaders or particular policies. The Agrarians were among the most affected by fragmentation, and Dimitrov believed that the Communists should exploit this by urging the left Agrarian radicals to break off from the main BZNS and set up a new peasant organisation. The existing Agrarian leaders – just like their Social Democrat counterparts – should be exposed as ‘the main support of the fascist dictatorship and the main enemy of the Communist movement’. 23 In tune with this was Dimitrov’s attitude on the national question: the Communist-dominated Macedonian, Thracian and Dobrudjan revolutionary organisations should be energised into campaigning against the Versailles Treaty and for self-determination; the ultimate goal was a Balkan federation of republics of workers and peasants, where the problem of national minorities would be solved along the lines of the Soviet model. 24 All of this was judged possible through maximum social mobilisation, on the basis of a distinctly Communist programme and unilateral tactics. In June 1931, commenting on the possibility of another military coup in Bulgaria, Dimitrov stated that the Communists should be ready ‘to stand against both fascist wings’.25

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At the same time, he admitted that the BKP(N) was languishing and was detached from the working masses. He believed that urgently-needed fresh forces should be recruited from sympathisers of the Social Democrats and their reformist trade unions. And yet it was the Bulgarian Workers’ Party (BRP), a front for the Communists allowed in 1927 amidst the internal relaxation, that registered serious successes in three rounds of local elections in 1930–2. It gained substantial votes in all the big cities, culminating in a straight majority at the Sofia municipal elections in September 1932.26 This was an altogether more imaginative application of the united-front policy, but neither Dimitrov nor the Comintern could analyse it except within the ‘class against class’ paradigm. Dimitrov considered that class struggle was intensifying in Bulgaria just as in the whole of Europe: in tune with this, he advised even the Communist Party of Great Britain to denounce the policy of the British Labour Party.27 As part of the analysis of the exacerbating crisis of capitalism, the Comintern also predicted increased aggressiveness on the international scene. This reflected the growth of revisionist sentiment across Europe, the onset of the Manchurian crisis and the stalemate of the Geneva disarmament conference; the view that renewed hostilities would ultimately threaten Bolshevik Russia gained force. Accordingly, the Comintern charged Dimitrov, as chief of the WEB, with the coordination of a European-wide campaign against imperialism in general and war in particular. This was one of many attempts by the Comintern to spearhead broader political movements which corresponded to particular issues from its own agenda. The mastermind behind it was the German Communist deputy Willi Münzenberg, known as ‘the red millionaire’, an expert on propaganda who operated under Soviet guidance and with Comintern funds. He secured the cooperation of Communist intellectuals and fellow-travellers such as Henri Barbusse and Romain Rolland, the latter also in his capacity of President of the International League of Fighters for Peace. Presently, they were summoned to lend support to a campaign against ‘imperialist war’, to be distinguished from what the Bolsheviks labelled ‘revolutionary war’.28 In June 1932 Dimitrov travelled across Europe to meet a circle of potential collaborators, including the writer Stefan Zweig. At the end of July Dimitrov attended the congress of the Anti-imperialist League in Frankfurt, although it was not obvious what his practical role was other than purely political representation and monitoring. Münzenberg had his well-established network of collaborators and technical staff, as well as links with Moscow, but his relationship with the Comintern was rather complex. Dimitrov kept a separate line of communication with Moscow, advising of the progress of the anti-war campaign and securing approval. The International Anti-war Congress met in Amsterdam between 27 and 29 August 1932 with Dimitrov heading the so-called ‘Communist faction’. Although he had monitored the preparations closely, he stayed in the background and did not even speak from the tribune.29 The congress was on the whole a success, with over 2,000 delegates from across the world.30 It captured genuine and wide-spread concerns, and its theme reverberated through European society more than any other previous Communist international initiative. Dimitrov became a member of the newly set up

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World Committee for Struggle against Imperialist War, based in Paris. He travelled to France twice in December 1932 to take part in the planning of a second grand rally in Paris, which would specifically address the menace of fascism. Dimitrov’s correspondence with the ECCI revealed that the Comintern was planning to preserve the various local committees that had been involved in anti-war agitation and in support for the Amsterdam Congress, and use them to engage diverse sections of the European leftist public in further initiatives and also to infiltrate other mass movements. In the meantime, in the latter half of 1932 Germany seemed on the brink of civil war. In the two parliamentary elections in July and November, the KPD increased its vote further, almost in direct proportion to the losses of the SPD. From a narrow point of view, this was success for the party: discussing the situation with Thälmann and the French Jacques Duclos, Dimitrov did not deem any changes necessary in the Communist stance. In October 1932 Dimitrov shared his observations on the antifascist struggle in Germany with the ECCI, endorsing the centrality of the united front, still in its specific meaning of action ‘from below’.31 Just before the November poll, a wildcat strike of transport workers in Berlin was led by Communists and supported by Nazis – to the embarrassment of both. Shortly afterwards, Dimitrov noted that the KPD had applied the united-front approach in a manner that failed to attract the largest possible number of workers. In order to redress this, the party should not insist that its leading role be recognised first and foremost but should assert its leadership over the course of the action. These were only very tentative and ambiguous remarks, at the most delicately hinting that the erstwhile Communist strategy had reached its zenith while inadvertently contributing to the advent of Hitler. However, Dimitrov had to be wary on two accounts: any mistakes on the part of the KPD would have repercussions on those who monitored and guided it. Furthermore, he had to be careful that his opinion was not interpreted as ‘rightist’ or ‘revisionist’, especially in the raw context of the recent accusations within the BKP(N). With all the turmoil going on around him, the surviving archival evidence suggests that German developments were hardly the centre of Dimitrov’s attention. He actually exerted more effort in maintaining links and exchanging information with his compatriots operating in Berlin and Moscow. He was also involved in auditing the activities of the various Comintern auxiliaries, including the MOPR, the International Peasant Committee and the Sports International. Simultaneously, his communications with the ECCI were not notably productive. Between 23 August and 3 October, Dimitrov wrote at least three times asking for information on the XII Plenum of the ECCI, which had taken place at end of August. Yet these never arrived, and he had to seek guidance in the materials published in Pravda; unsurprisingly he felt out of touch with developments in Moscow.32 This was all the more noticeable since Münzenberg, with whom Dimitrov was supposed to work closely, was himself present at the plenum. After a decade in exile, half of it underground in Vienna and Berlin, Dimitrov was well-versed in conspiratorial techniques, though he did have occasional moments of indiscretion: in August 1931, Piatnitsky admonished him for abandoning ‘even the basic elements of conspiracy’, and using full names and addresses of Communist agents

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in un-ciphered letters.33 The police in both Austria and Germany were aware of Dimitrov’s activity, though they failed to realise how senior his post was and had never made an effort to arrest him. When in September 1932, the ‘young’ Lambrev and Pavlov were detained, the authorities came close to tracking down the Bulgarian centre in Berlin, but Dimitrov himself was not in imminent danger. While the charges against the two were limited to passport and illegal-residence offences, Dimitrov favoured stirring up a political campaign in defence of his two compatriots, as political refugees.34 This was a curious choice in the tense and violent atmosphere in Germany. Legal counsel and common sense prevailed, but the incident cast some light on Dimitrov’s personal preferences in the event of his own cover being blown. It was hardly safety concerns that dictated Dimitrov’s release from his functions at the WEB on 3 January 1933, though the real motives are not clear. Officially, he was given the opportunity to concentrate on the so-called ‘Amsterdam movement’ against war, imperialism and fascism issuing from the congress the previous August. It was not obvious that Münzenberg, who was the driving force behind this and a number of other Communist front organisations, needed further help from Dimitrov. Neither is there specific evidence that Dimitrov’s wish to be redirected towards the Bulgarian party was finally granted. Nothing had suggested that Dimitrov’s recent actions were less than acceptable to the ECCI, and he did not interrupt his personal and professional routine in Berlin. He was reluctant to leave his lover Ani Krueger, so it was mid-February before he took the precaution of changing his lodgings, taking up a room with the Mansfeldts in the middle-class area of Steglitz. Writing to the ECCI in January 1933 he warned of the imminent possibility of the KPD being banned, and gave news of the latest demonstrations and clashes between Nazis and Communists. Nevertheless, throughout February he travelled freely between Berlin, Vienna and Munich. On a night journey from Munich on 27 February 1933 Dimitrov met a Frau Irmgard Rössler, who gave him her telephone number and agreed to a rendezvous. While on the train, he read the breaking news that the previous night the Reichstag had been set on fire. The arsonist had been caught on the spot and identified as Marinus van der Lubbe, a former Dutch Communist. Almost immediately, Hermann Goering, who was Prussian Prime Minister and one of Hitler’s closest associates, declared that this confirmed the Nazis’ predictions of a Communist provocation. This was the line taken up by the Nazi propaganda which, throughout the remaining time (less than a week) before the poll on 5 March, repeated that the Reichstag Fire had been plotted by domestic and international Communists in order to subvert the legitimate choice of the German people. Meanwhile, the police began arresting Communists of all ranks as well as other outspoken critics of the new German government. In this increasingly chaotic and violent atmosphere, Dimitrov seemed to continue with his usual activities. On 9 March 1933 he had a meeting with two other Bulgarians, Vassil Tanev and Blagoy Popov, activists of the BKP(N) and newly arrived in Germany, and took them to the Bayernhof restaurant in Potsdamer Strasse, one of the busiest areas of Berlin. As a search for van der Lubbe’s accomplices had been

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launched, a waiter grew suspicious of the ‘Russians’, who he claimed had visited the restaurant before, and called the police. While Popov made a desperate attempt to escape, Dimitrov instantly revealed his true identity and declared himself a political refugee. As soon as this was confirmed, the three were charged with instigating and organising the Reichstag Fire; shortly afterwards, Ernst Torgler, the leader of the KPD parliamentary group was also accused of the crime. Initially, the suspects were detained at the headquarters of the Berlin police. At his first interrogation Dimitrov protested against the allegations of complicity with van der Lubbe, and refused to sign the official protocol. He insisted that his work only dealt with Bulgaria, and that his sole offence in Germany was illegal residence, itself due to his death sentence in Bulgaria. After the preliminary arrest, Dimitrov was sent to solitary confinement in the Moabit prison in central Berlin; in September he was transported to the prison of the High Court in Leipzig where the trial was to be held. In October he was returned briefly to Berlin so that some court hearings could be carried out at the scene of the crime. The conditions in prison were not at all comparable to anything he had experienced in the Black Mosque in Sofia more than a decade earlier: thrown in a bare cell, he was initially not even allowed a walk in the prison yard. On 4 April he was handcuffed, and remained so for almost five months – in constant physical pain. He believed that the real aim of this torture was to crush him psychologically, and resolved not to give in. On 1 May 1933 his cherished International Day of Labour, he thought that sitting in prison was ‘disgusting and pitiful’ but braced himself: ‘No weakness!’ The regime in prison, while harsh, was inconsistent, and as things settled down Dimitrov began receiving parcels from his landlady Sofie Mansfeldt and his lover Ani Krueger. Even food sent by his mother from Bulgaria was delivered, despite a ban on packages from abroad.35 Gradually, other restrictions were also loosened, and Dimitrov was able to order a German newspaper, borrow from the prison library and – most importantly – establish contact with the outside world. Dimitrov used every opportunity to claim his rights, bombarding the investigating judge, the prison governor and the police authorities with letters demanding his confiscated belongings and money, enquiring about the sanctions on and disruptions of his correspondence, repeatedly protesting his harsh living conditions. Money was constantly an issue, since he had to pay for everything from postage stamps to the services of a lawyer, and he resorted to asking for financial help from his relatives in Bulgaria. Occasionally, his exasperation came through in his generally restrained and matter-of-fact letters. On 4 May, after hearing again that the money found on him at his arrest would not be released to meet his current expenses, and that he was to remain chained, he sent the principal investigator an acrimonious note saying he should never have forgotten that he was ‘in the hands of the class enemies who were trying to use even the judicial process as a weapon for uprooting Communism’.36 Dimitrov’s ten-month incarceration was full of ups and downs, but his energetic personality never allowed him to become totally depressed or passively resigned to his fate. Right from the moment of his arrest he refused to behave as a victim, convinced that ‘the wolf devours those who behave as lambs’. His endurance came from his

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incessant mental activity, which distracted him from the spartan conditions and physical discomfort. Initially, he simply kept himself busy, haphazardly reading whatever he could obtain – legal texts and language grammars, philosophy and fiction. As had long become his habit, he took copious notes from his readings and kept a diary. He eagerly jumped at the smallest chance of diversion in prison, once even attending a church service and conversing with the chaplain. Interestingly, during his interrogations and in official correspondence he also used the assistance of a Bulgarian interpreter, in order to obtain another contact with the outside world or possibly because he lacked judicial vocabulary in German. Indeed, in prison Dimitrov acquired a German textbook and wrote that he intended to use his time ‘for the further study of the German language’,37 even though he had resided and travelled around Germany and Austria for some ten years. In early August, Dimitrov received the prosecution’s case and started planning his defence in detail. He had been put in touch with a defence lawyer from Leipzig, Dr Wille, who performed some services for him but by July had declined to continue with the case. Meanwhile, Dimitrov’s family had secured the Bulgarian lawyer Stefan Dechev, who lived in Paris; additionally, Dimitrov’s foreign supporters had approached the French Radical Socialist Vincent de Moro-Giafferi and his colleague César Campinchi, famous criminal lawyers, as well as other successful and sympathetic barristers from Europe and the USA. None, however, were admitted by the court.38 Dimitrov soon clashed with his assigned defence counsel, Dr Paul Teichert, who insisted on a purely legalistic strategy. In contrast, the accused had decided early on not only to refute the specific charges of setting the Reichstag building on fire and conspiring to subvert the existing order in Germany, but also openly to stand up for his Communist work and beliefs. Dimitrov insisted that while living in Germany he was only actively opposing what he called ‘the fascist undemocratic government in Bulgaria’; he even suggested that Bulgarian politicians and other international witnesses should be brought in to testify on his political beliefs and activities. When this line met with lack of understanding from Teichert, Dimitrov announced that he would defend himself. At the first opportunity Dimitrov wrote to the more prominent of the foreign Communist collaborators with whom he had become acquainted through his work in Western Europe, such as Barbusse and the French deputy Marcel Cachin.39 He protested his innocence, asking for public support. Most of his correspondents were already involved in the World Committee for the Victims of German Fascism, created by Münzenberg, in Paris where he had fled after the Reichstag Fire. The Committee recruited across political, social and national lines, relying on leftist concerns about Hitler’s domestic policy and foreign aspirations: several British Labour politicians were prominent in it, with Lord Marley its international president. Uninhibitedly using celebrated names like those of Albert Einstein and H.G. Wells in order to promote his endeavours, Münzenberg conducted a wide international campaign, part of which was the public defence of Dimitrov and his co-accused.40 Two of Münzenberg’s initiatives in particular reverberated across Europe and North America, and became the focus of early propaganda and resistance to the

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recently-established Nazi regime. A Brown Book was compiled by his Austrian associate Otto Katz, with the principal aim of publicising and condemning Hitler’s lies and violence. Although only about a third of it was devoted to the Reichstag Fire, this is what it became famous for. It used varied documentary and oral testaments, promoting the thesis that the Nazis – who stood to benefit the most from the attack – were the real perpetrators. Van der Lubbe was depicted as a wayward radical and a psychologically immature homosexual on the brink of mental disability, who had become easy prey for Nazi scheming. Simultaneously, the revelations of a secret subterranean tunnel between the Reichstag building and Goering’s residence, combined with the latter’s precipitate anti-Communist pronouncements, were artfully used to guide readers in the direction of a Nazi plot.41 These claims were based on evidence that was not strictly verified or objective, but were more geared towards the general public’s sense of drama and intrigue. Dimitrov and his comrades were adopted as figureheads in the wider and longer-term effort to generate an international outcry against Hitler’s atrocities in Germany. The imaginative Münzenberg also came up with the idea of a counter-trial, where the celebrity lawyers who had already been approached would hear the case of the Reichstag Fire – complete with witnesses and documentary evidence, and apparently observing standards of objectivity and neutrality. This would defy the Nazi presumption of Communist involvement and further undermine the legitimacy and legality of the Nazi proceedings. The Comintern approved, and provided the necessary funding, but otherwise stayed out of sight, as required by the ostensibly non-political nature of the enterprise. In the summer of 1933, an International Juridical Investigation Commission was set up – presided over by Lord Marley, and with branches in several European countries where evidence was to be collected. Its efforts culminated in London, in the premises of the Law Society, where the counter-trial took place between 15 and 19 September 1933 and was widely reported by the international media. Sir Stafford Cripps, founder of the Socialist League, made the opening speech, attempting to set the tone of factuality and impartiality. Although many of the judges were driven by professional, humanitarian and democratic motives, some like D.N. Pritt, KC had long-standing links with the Soviet government.42 The counter-trial revealed interesting details, such as the fact that multiple fires had been set in the Chamber of the Reichstag or that 1,500 arrest warrants, mainly for Communist and Socialist activists had been ready for the German police the day before the fire. The most sensational evidence concerned the secret tunnel leading from Goering’s residence to the Reichstag. Excitement was whipped up as old building plans were produced; an expert witness testified with the doors of the hall locked and was then whisked away to avoid an alleged Nazi attempt to apprehend him. 43 Dimitrov’s youngest sister Elena spoke of his exclusive involvement with the Balkan Communist Parties. Although interested in the possible logistics of the fire and in the Nazi methods of rule and of elimination of the opposition, the London tribunal focused mainly on political issues. It concluded that van der Lubbe was not a member of any Communist party and no Communists could be held in any way responsible for the burning of the Reichstag. Yet the best defence was launched through a sustained offence against the

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Nazis: the counter-trial sought to impart the message that their ideology and propaganda as well as specific actions, provided the strongest possible incriminating circumstantial evidence. The substance of this massive propaganda campaign was as important as its timing: the fact that the London event pre-empted the official trial in Leipzig played a crucial role in eroding the case of the German prosecutor even before it was formally set out. In a sequel to the counter-trial a fortnight later in Paris, additional questions were raised about the incendiary materials used by van der Lubbe, and above all about his state of mind. Here Kolarov gave Dimitrov a character reference but the highpoint was an open rally where Dimitrov’s septuagenarian mother spoke a few simple words.44 Shortly afterwards, a second Brown Book of the Reichstag Trial and Hitler’s Terror was published. The arrest of the three Bulgarian Communists also stirred public opinion in their own country, even though the later claim that Bulgarians forgot their political differences in solidarity with the accused was somewhat exaggerated. Five of the Agrarians who had collaborated with the Communists in the 1920s did send a telegram to the German Court of Justice testifying that Dimitrov’s credo forbade individual terror. The quip that ‘there is only one courageous man in all of Germany, and he is Bulgarian’, went around the Sofia cafés, hotbeds of political gossip: there Dimitrov’s fate was followed with interest, and sometimes a little gratification of the national ego.45 The Comintern was conspicuous by its absence from all international efforts in defence of Dimitrov – even when it was clear that his trial was only the signal for the total eradication of Communism in Germany. Apart from financing Münzenberg’s operations, the only other action emanating from Moscow was permission for his younger sister and Kolarov to travel abroad. They, however, participated in the campaign in a personal capacity. There was no high-profile public action in the Soviet Union, even though the leadership was closely watching developments in Germany. Perhaps Dimitrov’s otherwise curious letter to the director of the Kislovodsk sanatorium, expressing gratitude for his treatment the previous year, which would now enable him to withstand the trial, was an attempt to attract attention and plead for help.46 Apparently, the Bulgarian representation at the ECCI failed to rise above the quarrels with Dimitrov, which had not been conclusively settled before his arrest. Neither was the internal CC very supportive of the needs of Dimitrov’s relatives, preparing to travel to the trial and to campaign in Europe. Dimitrov’s mother underplayed this, but practically admitted it when personally turning to the ubiquitous Kosta Todorov for money. He obliged and expressed real admiration for the simple and dignified woman – ‘a heroine without the slightest pose’.47 Further contributions were secured by Pastor Vassil Zyapkov from Parashkeva’s Evangelical Church.48 Even in prison Dimitrov’s personal life was immensely complicated. On the one hand, he treated Ani Krueger as an intimate partner, exchanging messages with her almost every other day, and demonstrating affection for and involvement with her children. In July, when she did not contact him for a few days, he panicked for the first time, imagining that she had collapsed and died under the strain. At the same time Dimitrov was in touch with Rosa Fleischmann, informing her briefly but regularly of

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his news.49 In June he received news of his wife Ljuba’s suicide in Moscow the previous month. The Leipzig Trial opened on 21 September 1933. The state prosecutor formulated accusations against Marinus van der Lubbe and ‘accomplices’, of plotting to change the Constitution by force and of premeditatedly setting the Reichstag on fire in order to start a Communist uprising. He demanded the death sentence. In the subsequent questioning, the principal defendant often behaved strangely, but invariably repeated that he had not known his co-accused and had acted all alone because he considered it his duty to do something to avenge the paralysed German working class. Although some reports questioned his mental ability or whether he was under the influence of drugs, van der Lubbe was consistent, mostly alert, quick to give his mind, and to the point. It was a moment of the utmost suspense when Dimitrov asked the Dutchman if they had met before – to which the reply was categorically in the negative.50 Dimitrov welcomed the beginning of the trial as it put an end to the months of solitary confinement. His first presentation to the jury took place on 23 September, and immediately changed the tone of the proceedings. Approaching the trial exclusively as a clash of ideological opponents, in which he had to fight for his life and convictions, Dimitrov adhered to his original choice of offensive strategy. He unwaveringly confirmed his Communist ideals and proudly admitted his role in the September Uprising in Bulgaria. He revealed that he was a member of the CC of the BKP(N) and of the ECCI, and declared that he was prepared to take political responsibility for his actions. Yet he stressed that precisely because he was a devoted Communist, he was not an ‘adventurer, terrorist or fantasist’ but a fighter for proletarian revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat, an admirer of the VKP(B). He put forward that the fire was an anti-Communist plot. From the start Dimitrov’s conduct and oratory greatly impressed the attending foreign journalists. The reporter of the London Observer called him ‘the embodiment of the Communist ideal’, and even publications undistinguished by Communist sympathies commented on his courage and fighting spirit. Dimitrov was of course aware that favourable press commentary was crucial for the positive public reaction he desperately needed. Therefore, quickly sensing the atmosphere in the courtroom, Dimitrov often played to the gallery, entering into altercations with the judges and causing as much of a stir as he could. Dimitrov, who had previously likened himself to ‘a caged lion’, admitted to feeling ‘like a fish swimming in water’ during the court sessions. This was why he actually regretted being excluded from the courtroom – for speaking out of turn and disobeying the presiding judge.51 His unruliness also banned him from looking at the site of the crime. Yet, his outbursts, although largely spontaneous, were on occasion deliberately geared to irritating the judges and so provided memorable highlights in the dull legal proceedings. Dimitrov chose to unleash his temper in order to receive maximum attention. On 13 October 1933 he wrote to his lawyer that he would behave as a person prosecuted on the grounds of his politics, not as ‘a soldier or prisoner-of-war in a concentration camp’.52

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Dimitrov’s verbal skirmishes with the president of the court and some of the witnesses were reminiscent of his performances in the Sofia Council or the Bulgarian Assembly a decade earlier. Dimitrov’s experience of public oration, of interrupting and being interrupted in his presentations, of witty if unrelated interjections, proved invaluable. His skills were a bit rusty, the foreign language a hindrance, but his sharpness and zeal were plainly evident. In front of the appreciative, excited and educated international audience Dimitrov was soon in his element. All the more so that he was unrestrained by party directives and Comintern resolutions, and free to follow the course he considered best for himself. Scores of witnesses were called before the jury – from members of the KPD to fire officers, Reichstag officials and leading Nazis. Acting in his own defence Dimitrov cross-examined most of them, and was often able to expose their irrelevance or ignorance. The prosecution tried to destroy his character by insinuating that he had had multiple affairs, and that he was engaged to be married to Ani Krueger even while he already had a wife. This was met by Dimitrov with the explosion that he was ‘neither impotent nor a homosexual, but a man’, followed by the bizarre suggestion for an international commission to investigate his private life. It transpired that Frau Krueger had published an official announcement of their engagement – apparently without Dimitrov’s consent. Dimitrov repeatedly clashed with van der Lubbe, refusing to accept that the latter had acted alone. Just as the Nazis were striving to prove that the Dutchman was a Communist acting upon orders from his superiors, Dimitrov was attempting to build a case that he was the Faustus of the Nazi Mephistopheles, Hitler’s associates having directed, manipulated and assisted the arsonist’s actions. Thus Dimitrov’s line in court followed an approach similar to that taken in the Brown Books and the counter-trials. By far the most publicised encounter in the courtroom was between Dimitrov and Goering on 4 November. As though he had not followed the proceedings so far, the Prussian Prime Minister made a highly political declaration, judged by Dimitrov as ‘disgusting and arrogant’. But the leading Nazi met his match as Dimitrov pointed out discrepancies between Goering’s statements and those of earlier witnesses, including the leader of the Nazi storm-troopers, and the inconsistency of what Goering was stating now and his previous pronouncements. Infuriated, Goering literally said that this was a political trial in which he would not concern himself with the minor details but would make sure to indict the party and the ideology which were responsible for the atrocity. After Dimitrov taunted Goering with the claim that Communist ideology ruled a sixth of the planet, the president of the court forbade the accused to use propaganda, as Goering shouted that Dimitrov was a scoundrel belonging to a criminal organisation and should be destroyed. To this Dimitrov delivered his coup de grâce: ‘Are you afraid of my questions, Herr Prime Minister?’ which earned him exclusion from the session, but not before Goering openly threatened to deal with him out of court.53 This clash was widely reported in the foreign press – invariably in Dimitrov’s favour. Four days later it was Goebbels’ turn to appear at the trial: Dimitrov’s exchanges with him were less explosive but equally successful. For Martha Dodd, the daughter of the US Ambassador to Berlin, Goering’s threat ‘gave away the plot’ and

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practically saved Dimitrov. Attending the trial with a limited command of German, she observed the facial expression, body language and emotions in the voice of the participants and detected in Dimitrov ‘the most amazing vitality and courage in a person under stress’.54 On 13 December 1933 the prosecutor’s concluding speech centred again on the premise that no one but the Communists could have set the Reichstag on fire, as this was the signal for a revolution to bring about a Soviet regime. He reiterated his demand for the death penalty in the cases of van der Lubbe and Torgler, but proposed that the three Bulgarians should be acquitted ‘for lack of evidence’. 55 Soon afterwards, Dimitrov’s final speech was less concerned with the findings of the trial than with reestablishing his personal political credo. It was almost sentimental, mixing the personal with the political: ‘I am defending myself as an accused Communist. I am defending my Communist revolutionary dignity. I am defending my ideas, my Communist convictions. I am defending the meaning of my life.’ He proclaimed that ‘the Comintern was his law’, while declaring somewhat uncharacteristic patriotic feelings: ‘I have no reason to be ashamed that I am Bulgarian and am proud to be the son of the Bulgarian working class.’ Famous as this speech became, Dimitrov later added to it words he had not pronounced in Leipzig: ‘Just as the Earth revolves so history is running towards a victory of the proletariat. It will bring the triumph of Communism, of a Soviet Europe, a world union of soviet republics.’56 On 23 December 1933 the Bulgarians were acquitted for lack of evidence. For his eloquent and fearless confrontation with the Nazis, Dimitrov became a hero for many anti-fascists across Europe. Loudly proclaiming his convictions and standing his ground in the face of a political adversary made him the perfect Communist. His unequivocal identification with the Comintern and the Soviet Union led most observers to think that he enjoyed Moscow’s benevolence and support. At the same time, a handful of detractors claimed that his passionate behaviour verging on arrogance at the trial was underpinned by nothing less than the knowledge that he was protected by Moscow. Ruth Fischer, a KPD militant who became disillusioned by Stalin’s methods and Comintern intervention in Germany in the late 1920s, wrote later that at Leipzig, Dimitrov was directed by the Comintern’s faithful intermediary Wilhelm Pieck, who had even penned Dimitrov’s speeches in consultation with the Soviet leadership: she did not discuss the logistics of this.57 Another Communist renegade, the Bulgarian Petur Semerdjiev, suggested that the Nazis were held in check by the Soviet secret services, who had captured Germans working in the USSR and held them as hostages, with a view to ensuring the outcome of the trial. Additionally, Stalin had allowed Dimitrov to eulogise Communism and focus on the actions of the Communist parties as a smokescreen for protecting the massive Soviet special operations in Western Europe. Even more controversially, but still sparing of details, this version asserted that under interrogation Dimitrov had revealed the names of some of his aides, who had been arrested and liquidated on Hitler’s orders.58 Although Dimitrov’s exuberant line of defence was ultimately vindicated, it is questionable whether the Comintern and the Soviet leadership welcomed it at the time. Indeed, Dimitrov’s eulogy of the USSR, his repeated references to the Comintern

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programme and his revolutionary declarations were hardly in tune with Soviet policy, which sought to deflect allegations of stirring up political trouble abroad. Indeed, the official Soviet attitude during the trial was more than restrained, and this could hardly be explained simply by a desire not to interfere in the workings of a sovereign German court, especially since the defendants were not Soviet citizens. Documents Dimitrov had asked for were sent from Moscow with unbelievable slowness: for instance, the resolutions of the XII ECCI Plenum that he had enquired about at the end of 1932 did not reach him in prison until October 1933. Documents from a sanatorium and the Lux Hotel, where foreign Communists resided during their trips to Moscow, arrived after the end of the trial. According to another account, the Bulgarian King, Boris III, had personally made it clear to Hitler that a harsh sentence of the Bulgarians would be unacceptable and damage relations.59 On hearing this later, Dimitrov enigmatically commented that the King was ‘cunning’;60 but Boris did not similarly influence his own government to allow the repatriation of Dimitrov and his comrades. The acquittal did not lead to immediate release: as illegal residents the three Bulgarians were detained by Leipzig's Prefect of Police. This precipitated a stream of letters from Dimitrov to him and to the Minister of the Interior, Dr Frick. Dimitrov’s mother and sister and Tanev’s wife also made a round of visits to German institutions, pleading on behalf of the prisoners. A secondary international campaign demanding the Bulgarians’ freedom also got under way. The continuing negative publicity, as well as the pretence of legality the Nazi regime engaged with at the time, convinced most relevant authorities that the sooner Dimitrov was got rid of the better. It was not immediately clear where the three Bulgarians should go. The obvious choice was their country of birth, and when it became clear that they would be found not guilty, Dimitrov’s relatives sounded out the option of obtaining a Bulgarian passport. On 30 December 1933 Dimitrov personally sent an official letter to the Bulgarian premier, Nikola Mushanov, requesting safe entry to Bulgaria. Dissatisfied with such a supplicant’s role Dimitrov also demanded a public inquiry into the September Uprising which had led to his judiciary sentences in Bulgaria. There is some uncertainty surrounding this, as Dimitrov claimed that his appeal to Mushanov had been blocked by the prison authorities. Yet not only did he make it available to journalists, but on 3 January the Bulgarian Government informed its plenipotentiary in Berlin that the three applicants had forfeited their Bulgarian citizenship and there was thus no legal obligation to admit them to Bulgaria. The previous day Dimitrov had written to Dr Frick to state that his preferred countries of extradition were Czechoslovakia or France.61 This had also been discussed with his relatives and Kolarov, but it is not clear whether an application was actually made. Curiously, Dimitrov did not ask straight away for a return to Moscow – although he had mentioned it in private conversations. His elder sister claimed that she had already wanted to contact the Soviets during the course of the trial, but Dimitrov insisted this be kept as a last resort; he only allowed his family to do so after the acquittal.62 In the Soviet Union the restrained attitude to the trial continued, even after its favourable outcome for Dimitrov. The XIII Plenum of the ECCI in November–

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December 1933 had made only very sparing mention of Dimitrov’s ordeal, and avoided branding the Reichstag Fire a Nazi plot. A similar approach was adopted by the XVII Congress of the VKP(B) in January 1934, even if at the time the Soviet leaders were already exploring ways of getting Dimitrov out of Germany.63 At Pieck’s suggestion, on 29 December 1933 Piatnitsky forwarded a letter to Stalin making a case for the Soviet Government to grant Dimitrov political asylum. The Soviet Embassy in Berlin had already advised the German Foreign Ministry, on 1 January 1934, that the Bulgarians had been issued with entry visas for the USSR. This does not seem to have been imparted to Dimitrov’s mother and sister, as they were petitioning the Soviet Embassy for the same documents as late as 14 February. One possibility is that the Soviets waited for the Bulgarian Government’s answer before themselves pressing further. In fact, on 13 January Rudolf Diels, chief of the Gestapo, mentioned for the first time that Dimitrov had obtained Soviet citizenship,64 although he might have confused this with permission to enter Russia. Dimitrov obviously knew something unofficially, as on 16 January 1934 he wrote to Kolarov asking for help in finding a small flat for him and his mother, in the expectation that he would ‘soon . . . be extradited to Russia’.65 In the midst of this uncertainty, coming on the heels of the acquittal and the relief it had brought, one notable incident took place. When the three Bulgarians were first reunited in the same cell, Dimitrov in all seriousness reprimanded his two compatriots for having demonstrated – unlike himself – extremely un-Bolshevik behaviour during the trial. The two had adopted the strictly legalistic approach recommended by the official defence counsels, and in a fit of depression Tanev had attempted suicide. Although they purported to agree with the criticism, at the time Popov and Tanev hardly gave it a second thought; Dimitrov on the other hand was deadly serious.66 It was only on 16 February 1934 that the Soviet Embassy made an official representation to the German Foreign Ministry requesting the release of the acquitted Dimitrov, Tanev and Popov, who were now referred to as citizens of the USSR. In the intermediate spell of almost two months between the verdict and this Soviet diplomatic note a discussion took place among certain top- and second-echelon Nazi leaders as to how to handle the now-famous Bulgarians. On 4 January officials of the German Interior and Foreign Ministries agreed it would be best if the prisoners were expelled, possibly to the Soviet Union. The only objection came from Diels, who related Goering’s view that Dimitrov and his companions should be sent to a concentration camp like many German Communists; there they would soon be forgotten. This course was deemed in the best interests of Germany, as otherwise the energetic and intelligent Dimitrov would become a leader of international anti-Nazi propaganda. Goering also mulled over the alternative of having the Bulgarians killed ‘in an attempted escape’ while being transferred from Leipzig to Berlin. On 1 February the Gestapo received custody of the three Bulgarians, who were indeed moved to the capital, though without incident. It seems that Hitler himself inclined towards continued arrest, but had not yet finally decided on the captives’ ultimate fate.67 The Soviet Embassy had delivered their verbal note to the German government on 16 February, and the following day the passports of the new Soviet citizens were ready.

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Five days later the Soviets sought a reply to the note, which made the German government’s search for a solution to the problem pressing. However, it is notable that the Soviets had procrastinated until it almost became too late; they showed little enthusiasm for sheltering Dimitrov, who had few obvious choices as his popularity made him unsuitable for covert work abroad. Most of the delay on the German side was caused by Goering, who continued to maintain that once free Dimitrov would undoubtedly plunge into ‘enormous inciting activity’. This stubbornness was perhaps at least a little driven by personal vindictiveness, as it went against von Neurath, the German Foreign Minister’s advice – which Hitler accepted on 26 February. Later that evening Goering, from his hunting lodge, once again pleaded for the detainment of the Bulgarians. He now also suggested that in case this proved unfeasible, the Communists should be exchanged for five German engineers recently arrested in Russia. The suggestion was presented to Hitler on the morning of 27 February – which implies that the release could not have been motivated by such a deal, as by seven o’clock that morning the Bulgarians were already in the air.68 However, it is not impossible that the scenario had been discussed in the relevant circles earlier, and that Goering was simply reinforcing it in his written message to Hitler. Alternatively, having lost valuable time at the end of the Leipzig Trial, the Russians might have offered a sweetener in the talks with the Germans; otherwise Moscow risked being seen as abandoning its staunch international supporters at a moment when a large number of dissenting voices were questioning its early policies towards the Nazi danger. The story of Dimitrov and his comrades possibly being exchanged for German engineers 69 cannot be wholly disregarded, even if it is hardly a sufficient explanation of the conduct of the Leipzig Trial, and especially of Dimitrov’s performance. The fact that the Germans dispatched Dimitrov before the Soviet Ambassador in Berlin confirmed on 28 February that there would be no trial for espionage of the German nationals apprehended in Russia seems to underscore the lateness of the bargain. The detail that the engineers were sent to Germany on 19 April suggests also a certain measure of good will on the part of Moscow.70 Diels talked to the Bulgarians on the eve of their departure confirming that Germany desired good relations with Russia. In greatest secrecy the three acquitted men were flown to Moscow via Königsberg on 27 February 1934. To one of the German escorts on the way to East Prussia, Dimitrov haughtily said he hoped to go back to a soviet Germany one day. Exactly one year after the blaze in the German Reichstag Dimitrov arrived in the Soviet Union, the country he considered his spiritual home. Already a celebrity in Europe and beyond, he received a hero’s welcome. ‘How everything changed!’ exclaimed Dimitrov in his diary upon arrival in the Soviet capital. There was a stark contrast between the prison cell and the familiar Lux Hotel, where foreign Communists were customarily put up; the apparently spontaneous and sincere admiration that met him everywhere in Moscow was overwhelming. Top Comintern officials and Bulgarian comrades lined up to greet him at the airport as people from nearby factories and offices waved and cheered. Dimitrov was astonished to see his

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portrait worn as a badge by none other than the ‘young’ Iskrov, who was in the meeting party. Physically weakened and mentally exhausted after his year-long imprisonment, Dimitrov was sent to recuperate at the Arkhangel’skoe sanatorium outside Moscow; but his medical examinations had to compete with a hectic routine of rallies, interviews and international correspondence. The first public event he was invited to was a celebration of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s widow, on 28 February. This was an exclusive gathering of old Bolsheviks which held special significance for Dimitrov, who for the past decade had fought to assert himself as the principal Leninist in the Bulgarian party. Shortly afterwards, on Saturday 3 March, he was received for the first time by Stalin in the Kremlin. This too was a social meeting, where he was treated to a friendly lunch and a photo session with top Soviet and Comintern leaders. Stalin dismissed Dimitrov’s gratitude for Soviet support during the Leipzig Trial and possibly commented that the Nazis had not been sufficiently experienced to kill their opponents before trying them in court.71 Almost dazed by the fast stream of events and people, Dimitrov continued to notice with interest the profound transformation of the attitudes of many of his colleagues. Before the meeting with Stalin, he had already received a congratulatory letter from Béla Kun; the next day Dimitrov recorded that Piatnitsky ‘was finally pleased’ and Knorin’s behaviour was ‘strangely altered’. Amongst the Bulgarians, both Anton Ivanov and Iskrov hailed Dimitrov as ‘the leader of the September Uprising’. On a personal level, Dimitrov plunged into a sentimental whirlwind. The day after his touch-down ‘at home’ he spent ‘an awful hour’ at the crematorium where the ashes of his late wife were kept. Now finally able to mourn her, he admitted to feeling ‘so lonely and unhappy’. In June his emotional state was ‘almost worse . . . than in prison’. Amidst the esteem and persistent attention, Dimitrov experienced a kind of emotional anti-climax. Sad memories of his wife tormented him; indeed this was the main reason for breaking up with the Yugoslav Kiti Jovanović; she was among the close acquaintances who had greeted him at the airport, and he called on her the following day. Not only did she apparently presume that their old relationship would continue but she also hoped to marry Dimitrov. It took him months to dispel these illusions, while in the meantime he had received and rejected at least one other offer of ‘tender care’. Until November 1934 Dimitrov kept in contact with Ani Krueger. In nine months he had exchanged a number of letters with her and her daughters, and while distance and time brought gradual estrangement, Dimitrov promised to look after them as well as ‘the humble existence’ of a revolutionary allowed.72 Some of Dimitrov’s Bulgarian relatives were in Moscow. His sister Elena and her husband Vulko Chervenkov had emigrated after the Sveta Nedelya blast, and his mother and his sister Magdalena stayed in Russia for about five months, sightseeing and resting after their European tour in support of Dimitrov’s case at Leipzig. Soviet protection now extended over the whole of his family, and his mother was given a monthly allowance which was transferred to Bulgaria through German banks.73 Dimitrov’s release from Germany coincided with an outburst of political turmoil in Europe that confirmed the Communists’ fears that fascism was spreading globally.

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On 6 February Paris was overrun by a number of extreme right-wing leagues, many sharing pro-fascist ideas. Their violent demonstration turned into an attempted coup. In response, the French Socialists and Communists acted separately but identically in declaring a general strike and launching massive demonstrations; these were the first tentative steps towards mutual rapprochement. Within a week Vienna flared up, when on 12 February 1934 the police and conservative paramilitaries attacked the Schutzbund, the armed wing of the Austrian Socialist Party (SPÖ). This precipitated a general strike, followed by violent clashes which carried on across the country for four days but which ended with the defeat and eventual total ban of the Socialists. The Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ), which stayed away from these events, benefited from them as a group of Socialist leaders and new members migrated to it. While conditions were seemingly conducive to the two leftist parties closing ranks, there was little readjustment on the part of the Communists. With the ECCI’s approval, the KPÖ concluded that it had an opportunity to stage its own revolution and fight for soviet rule.74 These two examples highlight the crossroads which the European Communist movement had reached, in trying to reconcile the dilemma of the ‘class against class’ policy with a more flexible attitude to Social Democracy. Dimitrov had worked with both the Austrian and the French parties; he had observed at close quarters the collapse of the German Communists, who had stuck to the official strategy in the face of Hitler’s challenge to the whole political system. Dimitrov’s trial at the hands of the Nazis had turned him, in his comrades’ eyes, into an expert on fascism. Thus it was logical that he should be involved in devising not only the tactics of the individual Communist parties but also longer-term strategies vis-à-vis the rising fascist tide. The main difficulty in this respect lay in the fact that the previous December, the XIII Plenum of the ECCI had concluded that the current stabilisation of capitalism was near its end, which would bring in a new wave of wars and revolutions. ‘The advance of fascism, which has been facilitated by the Social Democrats . . . demands intensified struggle . . . for a soviet regime’. 75 Simultaneously, Stalin personally complained to Dimitrov that the incumbent Comintern leadership seemed unable to think outside the current model, as evidenced in its having stimulated the hard line of the Austrian Communists. Having shown resilience and originality at Leipzig, Dimitrov was in a favourable position to chart a fresh start, so Stalin asked him to prepare a guiding letter to the workers of Austria. This was a strong signal that Dimitrov might be co-opted into the policy-making circles in Moscow.76 Dimitrov was eager to make an impact. In an unsent missive to Stalin, he enquired about his future work, pointing out that his success at Leipzig was ‘political capital for the Communist International’. However, in his initial steps Dimitrov faltered. The first draft of the letter immediately highlighted a divergence of views, as Dimitrov classified the February events in Vienna as ‘an armed uprising’. Stalin countered that the Bolsheviks – implying that Dimitrov was not one of them, and thus consciously or not touching on a sensitive area – would consider the case as no more than ‘armed resistance’, since the vital ingredient of fighting for power had been absent. When Dimitrov explained that he had followed the terms used by the SPÖ and the

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Comintern, Stalin disparaged both. He then agreed to provide Dimitrov with his corrections in writing. In a more extensive discussion on 7 April, Stalin described the recent unrest in Vienna as a benchmark for the whole of the continent, where the trend, extending as far as Britain, was towards fascism and against bourgeois democracy. Supporting the latter was pointless; however, summoning the workers to fight under the banner of the Communist parties was not the right formula either. Stalin simply recommended that the Comintern should first patiently clarify the general picture, and wondered at Dimitrov’s frank remark that ‘despite the correctness of our theory’ millions of workers still adhered to the Social Democratic parties. But when Dimitrov mentioned that the whole Communist approach to the workers, and the propaganda used in it, was wrong, Stalin impatiently lectured him on the historic links between the workers and the middle classes in Europe, the inherent imperialist attitudes of European workers who were afraid of losing their colonies, and the ‘herd psychology’ of the masses. Ironically, after all the debate and delay, at the end of April the final version of the letter to the KPÖ offered little that was new regarding Social Democracy and the bourgeoisie, both being presented as rejecting parliamentary democracy and gravitating towards fascism.77 Nonetheless, the task had acted as a kind of test for Dimitrov – Stalin was more curious about his approach and attitude than his theoretical formulations. When the conversation turned to the situation within the Comintern, Stalin innocuously asked Dimitrov who the organisation’s leader was. Dimitrov was not allowed to hedge, so he ventured that matters would become chaotic without Piatnitsky; but he fervently insisted that it was Stalin himself who held together the leading nucleus of the Comintern, and begged him to take a bigger part in its work. In turn, Stalin and Molotov gave Dimitrov a green light to raise any issue and carry out any necessary reorganisation of the Comintern, effectively appointing him at this interview as its head.78 Ambitious and determined as Dimitrov was, he had not dreamt of such promotion. But of course his newly-acquired international fame made him particularly suitable to reinvigorate the stagnant institution. As he was not Russian, any criticism that the VKP(B) dominated the Comintern bodies could be deflected, while simultaneously Dimitrov could hardly undermine the positions of the Soviet leadership. In late April 1934, Dimitrov was restored to an initial formal post as head of the Central European Bureau of the Comintern. Even now, he remained amazed by the proposal of the ‘bizarre people’ at the ECCI that he should prepare the central report for the prospective Seventh Congress of the Third Communist International. The allocation of this huge task officially confirmed his role at the top. Shortly afterwards, the nominal Comintern leader, Dmitry Manuilsky, graciously ceded the position to Dimitrov, acknowledging that the latter’s interview with Stalin was of historic significance, and lamenting that Stalin had not voiced these views several years earlier. He then admitted that he himself did not have the necessary authority, and that the Comintern suffered from suffocating bureaucracy and routine. He was convinced that history had propelled Dimitrov to the fore, that the Leipzig Trial had made him immensely popular and that he should rightfully become the ‘master’ of the

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Comintern. Manuilsky’s final observation was that work at the Comintern was pointless unless there was a direct and open line to Stalin – something Dimitrov seemed to have secured.79 Stalin continued to display respect for Dimitrov: at the traditional May Day parade, as Dimitrov stood facing Lenin’s mausoleum, Stalin spotted him, called out to him and signalled for him to get up onto the tribune, together with his mother and elder sister. The gesture was of monumental significance for Dimitrov – he was being publicly acknowledged as a member of the Soviet elite, the ultimate Leninist fighter, who had single-handedly defeated the arch-enemy and proclaimed his Communist beliefs to the world, now standing side by side with the leaders of the first Communist state. He heard close up the speech by the Commissar for the Army and Navy, Kliment Voroshilov, and was greeted and complimented on his bravery in the German court by both the writer Maxim Gorky and the prominent CC member Nikolay Bukharin; the latter was particularly impressed by Dimitrov’s quip about not being a homosexual. Crucially, Dimitrov had Stalin’s ear, and was able to arrange yet another appointment with him to discuss the Comintern, where he had sensed ‘confusion’. The following day, his audience with Stalin proved satisfactory. Now admitted to the inner sanctum of the Soviet state, Dimitrov was counselled to concentrate on ‘the fundamental issues’ and abstain from giving interpretations of everyday questions. Stalin confided that whenever he himself was faced with trivial matters he ‘wriggled out’. On a more specific note, he shared his disappointment with the German Communist leaders, particularly Thälmann.80 Public demand for Dimitrov was high, and he delivered numerous addresses and speeches – at the Lenin Institute, at an electrical plant, to a delegation of workers from 22 foreign countries, and so on. He met the captain of a transatlantic ship that had been named after him. He was besieged by journalists from different Soviet periodicals, and very excited about his debut on Soviet radio. Always a keen writer, he now had a team of assistants who were compiling his archive, editing and overseeing the publication of his interviews, writing brochures on his behalf. One such venture, a pamphlet in defence of the arrested Thälmann, appeared in various languages in the summer of 1934. An early sign of Dimitrov’s rising fortune was the request for his memoirs, and the intention of the Soviet party publishing house to sponsor his biography. 81 By the end of March, Blagoev’s daughter Stella was already engaged in this endeavour, under Dimitrov’s scrutiny. The book put forward several theses which survived until the final collapse of Communism. It awarded Dimitrov accolades such as ‘naturally gifted’ and ‘the embodiment of all the best qualities of a Communist fighter’; his victory in Leipzig was explained by his loyalty to the Marx–Engels–Lenin–Stalin tradition, and his release by the good offices and protection of the Soviet Union. Even his family was cast in the Communist iconography.82 In the meantime, his health was taking a turn for the worse and medical examinations and treatments became a part of his life. At the beginning of July he was ordered to take a complete two-month break away from work. By then, at least the many claimants for his heart were held at bay and Rosa Fleischmann, his reliable and

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humble aide and friend from Vienna, agreed to marry him. 83 One of Dimitrov’s later bodyguards reported hearsay that Stalin had chosen the bride – or at least given his blessing to the marriage.84 Upon hearing of the urgent need for rest and care, Dimitrov arranged a rendezvous with Stalin at short notice. They had a ‘deep talk’ and the very same evening Dimitrov and his relatives found themselves in Sevastopol on the Black Sea. By the same token, the Seventh Congress of the Third International, which had been due by the end of the year, was postponed. However, Stalin was not simply concerned with the physical condition of the newly-appointed ‘master’ of the Comintern. More importantly, having initiated the overhaul of the organisation’s personnel, he was to an extent resistant towards the obvious necessity for adjustment of policy. On 14 May 1934 Dimitrov was already suggesting to the ECCI that the main speech at the coming Comintern congress should focus on the idea of a united front against fascism. In effect, he proposed that the whole strategy of the Communist parties be rethought with a view of overcoming existing sectarianism and dogmatism. Dimitrov was exploring the possibility of shifting the position of the Communist parties by abandoning the formula of a united front ‘from below’, and ceasing to blame its evident malfunction on the Social Democrats. Although Stalin himself had recently hinted at a mellower stance with regard to the developments in Austria, this had not been followed through. On 11 May Dimitrov and the French Communist Maurice Thorez had also talked about the situation in France;85 their discussion helped Dimitrov to crystallise his ideas and to conclude that a united front ‘from below’ was not sufficient, while the tactic of demanding that the Social Democrats first admit the leading role of the Communist parties was definitely harmful. Dimitrov started pondering how the political barriers between Communist and Socialist workers should be pulled down, and submitted that even the terminology of fronts ‘from below’, ‘in the middle’ and ‘from above’ was dogmatic and outdated. 86 A logical consequence of this was that the Communist leadership should appreciate the need for transitional stages on the way to a soviet regime. Dimitrov claimed that he had begun to comprehend all of this while observing the political behaviour of workers in Europe in the late 1920s, even before the ascent of the Nazis. More recently, he was certainly influenced by developments in France, where under the fascist menace the Communist leaders had entered into ground-breaking negotiations with the Socialists. When on 19 May a military coup d’état, masterminded by Zveno, a so-called ‘political circle’ with ideas of purging political life, took place in his native Bulgaria, Dimitrov and Iskrov concluded, in unprecedented unison, that the party should respond by engineering cooperation with a broad range of leftist syndicates and political organisations. However, Stalin had not yet been induced entirely to agree with this new approach to the united front – which in effect completely changed its nature. In fact on 20 May Dimitrov reported that Stalin was rather indignant about the united front ‘from above’ that was hesitantly shaping up in France. For the next six weeks, Stalin did no more than give his permission for Dimitrov to deliver the key speech at the forthcoming congress. Stalin even confided to Dimitrov at the plenum of the VKP(B)’s CC on 29

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June that there was ‘a blank in his head with regards to this’ and ‘something must be prepared’.87 In order to re-engage Stalin with the issue, Dimitrov wrote to him on 1 July 1934 with a list of specific questions. The tactic did not work very well, but still revealed some of Stalin’s thinking. When Dimitrov asked whether it was correct indiscriminately to consider all Social Democrats as ‘social fascists’, Stalin answered in the affirmative but ‘only as far as the Social Democrat leadership’ was concerned, and pointed out that this should not be ‘indiscriminate’. On the question of whether it was correct in all circumstances to consider the Social Democrats the mainstay of the bourgeoisie, Stalin remarked ‘obviously not in Persia’. And so it continued, with Dimitrov posing specific queries based on established practice, and Stalin falling back on generalisations or focusing on obscure examples with hardly concealed sarcasm. Stalin’s notes in the margins are extremely laconic, and at times leave the impression of deliberately avoiding precise answers, just as he had admitted not long before. Then again, Stalin upheld that in the main capitalist countries the left Social Democrats were the main danger to the Communists, and claimed that ‘objectively’ the Social Democrat leaders were traitors to the working class. Therefore the basis of Communist policy should still be the united front ‘from below’.88 In other words, Stalin remained cautious and uncommitted with regard to the readjustment of Comintern policy, which some national figures viewed as logical and necessary. For his part, Dimitrov was trying to judge how sharp a political turn Stalin was prepared to make, and he clearly preferred to risk blowing Stalin’s patience with long-winded and repetitive questions rather than overstep his own mandate. Occasionally, Dimitrov himself was less than precise: he offered that instead of proclaiming the hegemony of the Communist parties, it was better to ‘implement it in reality’, but stopped short of explaining what this involved. When on 2 and 3 July the committee overseeing the preparation of Dimitrov’s congress speech met in working mode for the first time, Dimitrov posed a triple question which essentially echoed his letter to Stalin. He asked rather poignantly whether the Social Democrats should always be seen as ‘social fascists’, as the principal enemy of the Communists and as the mainstay of the bourgeoisie; his own answer was clearly in the negative. He suggested that the previous analysis constituted an obstacle to reaching out to the Social Democrat workers. This triggered an animated dispute among the present senior Comintern officials, in which Manuilsky and Kuusinen backed Dimitrov. Knorin directly disagreed, while others like Solomon Lozovsky and Piatnitsky were less than enthusiastic about Dimitrov’s approach, but went no further than reiterating the value of the current tactic.89 It is possible that the Comintern top ranks had sensed Stalin’s ambivalence, and were therefore not sure how far to go along with Dimitrov. Conversely, Stalin himself might have waited until a debate at the ECCI thrashed out the issue. In any case, the new course needed careful thinking through and solid preparation, rather than a precipitate overnight launch. This was a more pertinent reason than Dimitrov’s health for the postponement of the congress which would sanction the change of policy. Neither was it accidental that while deliberations were just beginning in Moscow, the new approach was cautiously being tried out in France. It was only on 27 July 1934

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that the agreement between the French Socialists and Communists was signed. 90 The Comintern could only benefit from first observing how the experiment worked before actually adopting it officially. It is not easy to define Dimitrov’s contribution to what eventually materialised as the policy of the ‘popular front’, for which he mostly took the credit. The scholarly assessment varies between the earlier description of Dimitrov as little more than a figurehead unable to change much on his own 91 and his more recent recognition as the chief driving force in favour of the new policy. The latter argument points out that for his novel analysis Dimitrov drew on his political experience in Bulgaria and his decade of work in Europe. It has even been extended to speculate that the popular front was one area where Dimitrov had considerable differences with Stalin.92 While Dimitrov did become the main exponent of the popular front, in doing so he carefully cleared his every step with Stalin and the Russian Politburo. If there were later moments when Stalin seemed less supportive of the policy, it does not mean that Dimitrov was intent on or capable of carrying it through without superior approval. In intellectual terms, the cooperation of Communists with the Agrarian Union at the time of the September Uprising in Bulgaria did contain some elements of united-front tactics. However, it had not been Dimitrov’s brainchild and had focused as much on logistical and military as on political issues. For the BKP(N), its leading position in all dealings with the Agrarians had always been a sine qua non, even in the most dire of circumstances. As to Dimitrov’s involvement with the European Communist parties in the late 1920s and early 1930s, his official views and practical actions had been undistinguishable at the time from those of the Comintern. It is true that Dimitrov had witnessed the complete failure of the Comintern’s positions in Germany in the months before Hitler’s advent to power. In February–March 1933 both the Socialist International and the Comintern had appealed to workers of any political affiliation to unite in the face of the growing danger from the extreme right, yet little of substance resulted.93 The Comintern in particular still seemed intent on blaming the Social Democrats for sabotaging common political action, and called on its organisations to seek to engage any workers without waiting for the outcome of negotiations at the top. If Dimitrov was thinking of criticising or offering improvement to this rhetoric – and this is a huge ‘if’ – he had no such chance before his arrest in Berlin. Only after the successful end of the Leipzig Trial did he have the opportunity and confidence to explore novel concepts and discuss them with the Soviet and Comintern leadership. By then the establishment of the Nazi regime had finally shocked a number of European Communists into realising that drastic and ingenious measures were called for. The different responses to the Austrian and French challenges were indicative: in the first case Dimitrov retreated behind Stalin’s on the whole conservative guidance. In the second, it was local choices that drove the move towards wider political cooperation, on which the Comintern eventually bestowed its approval. Ironically, at the moment Dimitrov was embarking on a supervised redefinition of Comintern policy his native party was once more in political and ideological trouble. Caught unawares by the bloodless military coup of 19 May, it did little beyond dubbing the perpetrators ‘fascist’ – like all Bulgarian governments since 1923. The

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Zveno toppled a National Bloc government that had been democratically elected but had felt uncomfortable with the large presence of the Bulgarian Workers’ Party (BRP) in both Parliament and several municipal councils. Indeed, claiming – correctly – that the BRP was a facade for the banned BKP(N), the government had cancelled the mandates of its deputies. So the Bulgarian Communists felt no affinity with the National Bloc, even though it included the centre-left BZNS and the Radical Party. Indeed, the Communists saw the coup as the opening of a revolutionary crisis, and accordingly called for the establishment of a soviet regime in line with ECCI instructions issued after the end of February. 94 While the thinking in Moscow was gradually undergoing revision, little information on Bulgarian developments was immediately available. It only became the subject of a review at the Balkan Ländersecretariat in the middle of August – when the future direction of the Comintern was slowly but surely becoming clearer. Severe criticism of the domestic Bulgarian leadership was meted out. Notably, the sharpest censure came from Kun and Knorin, both of whom had opposed Dimitrov’s preliminary soundings on the new tactics. On the other hand, Manuilsky, already working well with Dimitrov, took a softer stance, reminding his colleagues that the BKP(N) had been encircled by the class enemy. 95 Ultimately, the Political Secretariat of the ECCI exposed the Bulgarian party for its wrong analysis of the situation, even though the ‘appropriate’ framework had not been available at the time. The ECCI pointed out that it was an error not to engage in united action and to map out common policy with the Agrarians and Social Democrats, a tactic not yet officially adopted by the ECCI itself. 96 This resolution clearly reflected the emerging new Comintern line, in that it recommended the formation of a broad anti-fascist coalition with Agrarians, Social Democrats and even the originally much-hated reformist trade unions. The goal was the familiar one of a government of workers and peasants. While the resolution was sent to Bulgaria in October 1934, in the second half of December Dimitrov and Kolarov were greatly angered that ‘there are no signs of correcting the line . . . no signs of realising the mistakes. On all essential issues, they continue to sing the old tune’. 97 Once again, the internal leaders opposed the directives of the Foreign Bureau, even though it had the solid support of the ECCI. In November 1934 Dimitrov’s ideas had crystallised sufficiently for him to publish an article in Pravda on ‘The Struggle for a Popular Front’. Although recognising the urgency of countering the spread of fascism, Dimitrov also revealed that the popularfront tactic should be linked to the strategic goal of proletarian revolution, aiming at a dictatorship of the proletariat. From this perspective, the popular front was a new means to an old end, rooted firmly in the Leninist tradition of political flexibility and aspiration for power. However, the advantages of the new approach were not universally appreciated. As the theorising at the Comintern continued, even in the spring of 1935 some publications were claiming that the main objective of a popular front was that of guiding workers into the Communist parties, i.e. not very different from the erstwhile united front ‘from below’. Dimitrov himself was intent on developing a more complex and comprehensive philosophy of the popular front. He did so with the support of a large and busy

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working group, to which was assigned the research and drafting of different sections of his congress speech. He upheld the concept that fascism was the ‘open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialistic elements of financial capital’. German fascism in particular was described as the ‘mailed fist of international counter-revolution’ and of imperialist warmongers inciting a crusade against the Soviet Union. Its rise to power was not a simple change of bourgeois government, but the instalment of open dictatorship. Dimitrov insisted that such analysis was not limited to Europe but had global application: all countries were threatened by fascism which in the USA was disguised as constitutionalism and in Britain as a national government. Even as the individual Communist parties were guided to an agreement with centre-left political forces, Dimitrov did not abstain from blaming the Social Democrats for past indifference towards fascism. Socialist cooperation with the bourgeoisie had caused divisions among the working class, isolating it from peasants and youth. Only as an afterthought did Dimitrov admit that the Communists themselves had not adequately appreciated the danger from the extreme right.98 Early on in his assumption of the Comintern leadership Dimitrov addressed himself to the issue of personnel and personalities. He was naturally sensitive to the unhealthy personal relations at the headquarters, as well as to the prevailing bureaucracy. In the first instance, Ossip Piatnitsky was dismissed. Furthermore, Dimitrov highlighted the absence of confident and independent local leadership. In his view, the country sections were not used to taking their own decisions – all too often they simply looked to Moscow and indiscriminately replicated the Soviet experience. Accordingly, the reorganisation included the return of the parties’ operational leadership to their Central Committees. Although on the surface these reforms looked like decentralisation, in the long run the reins were tightened. Similarly, although Dimitrov seemed to bring fresh ambition and self-assurance to the Comintern, he invariably stayed close to Stalin and consulted him extensively. Right from his promotion Dimitrov called for better links between the Comintern and the Soviet party, as the new policy called for common implementation.99 Voicing the necessity of reinvigorating the leadership at both national and international levels, Dimitrov stated that the Communist parties had largely managed to get rid of various opportunists. Yet he also warned that ‘the struggle against sectarians had not been so successful’.100 There could not be a clearer signal that those who resisted the new policy would soon be called to account. This acquired ominous undertones, coinciding as it did with the search for the moral perpetrators of the murder of the VKP(B) chief in Leningrad, Sergey Kirov, on 1 December 1934. It was hardly a coincidence that Dimitrov was proposing a strengthening of the ranks of the Comintern faithful just as Stalin was embarking on his Great Purge. Believing that he had proven himself as a Leninist in Leipzig, Dimitrov would declare from the congress rostrum that he was also a disciple of Stalin. The question of Dimitrov’s standing within the BKP(N) was resolved almost by default: no one could dream of accusing the ‘Lion of Leipzig’ of insufficient Bolshevisation, or any other political deficiency. Many of his former detractors were

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truly impressed by his conduct at the trial, and were willing to put aside their previous objections. At the ECCI plenum at the end of 1933 Iskrov had already honoured his heroic compatriot, implying that the Bulgarian party itself deserved a share of the praise. Dimitrov’s rising fortunes, meanwhile, did not lead him to neglect his own party; on the contrary, he took an active part in the effort to reform it and bring it into line with international developments. Dimitrov started by promoting his version of the party’s history, first among the Bulgarian émigrés in the Soviet Union. On 17 May 1934 he spoke at a big memorial meeting marking the tenth anniversary of Blagoev’s death, choosing to resume his crusade among the Bulgarian colony where he had left it some two years earlier. Underlining the positive aspects of the Narrow past, Dimitrov portrayed himself as the political heir of the founder. He claimed that throughout his career he had demonstrated intransigence against the bourgeoisie and Social Democracy, deference to the supremacy of the party and devotion to the proletariat. These were all the qualities of a convinced Bolshevik which he had deployed in the German court. Significantly, while talking assuredly of his own bravery, for the first time he also made a clear statement of mistakes he had made during the long period of his political activity. He chose two vital issues on which to criticise himself, namely the neutrality stance on 9 June 1923, which had changed the course of Communist history in Bulgaria, and the theoretical controversy about the relationship between Narrows and Bolsheviks which had persisted over the last decade. 101 Dimitrov’s open self-criticism came at a moment when his own position was practically unassailable; when others followed his example, willingly or not, the consequences were mostly malign. The question of Dimitrov’s leadership was almost instantly transformed into a test of overall loyalty to the Bulgarian party, and a yardstick for Bolshevism in the Bulgarian context. In December 1934, the Bulgarian representation at the ECCI reported that they had reconsidered Dimitrov’s role as leader – having only recently realised the importance and seriousness of the matter. Accordingly, they now popularised Dimitrov, under the banner of unification and consolidation of the party, as ‘the symbol of Bolshevism, the leader of the international anti-fascist movement and of the mass united front against hunger, fascism and war’. They pledged to include this view in all party publications and to disseminate Dimitrov’s writings and speeches to a wide audience.102 Becoming a Dimitrovite – in many cases being allowed to become one by the man himself – became an instrument for reorganising and disciplining the Bulgarian party. This was necessary because the underground BKP(N) and the banned BRP, whose names were often used interchangeably as they overlapped significantly, had fallen into further disarray after the coup of 19 May. Kolarov, now in the role of Dimitrov’s second-in-command, insisted that the internal leaders deserved no confidence and called for urgent ideological work to return the party to health.103 Under Dimitrov’s tutelage, the Bulgarian representation at the Comintern and the Foreign Bureau embarked on an overhaul of the BKP(N), but the task was overtaken by the vigilance campaigns in the Soviet Union, themselves transformed into the Great Terror after

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Kirov’s murder. Dimitrov found himself at the centre of three interrelated projects – the cleansing of the Bulgarian party, the Comintern and Soviet society at large. The danger of provocateurs and spies had been previously addressed repeatedly by both the Comintern and the Soviet party. 104 The ‘enemy mentality’ was fed by both growing international instability and the ongoing divisions in some fraternal Communist parties, of which the Bulgarians were just one. How easily the two fused was well illustrated by Anton Ivanov, who in August 1934 wrote to Dimitrov claiming that some ‘rotten Bulgarian elements spread anti-Soviet attitudes’.105 Similarly, picking up themes from Soviet developments, in the spring of 1935 Kolarov accused the ‘young’ ‘sectarians’ of Trotskyism – a charge which not even Dimitrov supported at that point. Yet Dimitrov’s remit included the search for Trotskyites and Zinovievites, who were to be neutralised. In early 1935, the ECCI sent an array of directives warning its constituent parties of the dangers of such traitors and launched its own investigation into former ‘deviationists’ working at its headquarters. On 16 and 20 February 1935 at meetings devoted to the consequences of Kirov’s murder, Dimitrov praised recent efforts while warning that ‘it would not be possible to eliminate in a single stroke everything rotten that still exists in our ranks’. He had no doubt that the class enemy was attempting to infiltrate the body of dedicated members, and so special measures were needed to protect the Comintern apparatus. It was crucial that personal life should be subordinated to the interests of the party – in Dimitrov’s words, ‘for us, the party is everything’.106 A range of measures followed, including the expulsion of some compromised staff and milder reprimands for lesser transgressors of party discipline. On 7 March 1935, Dimitrov delivered a programmatic speech at a conference of Balkan Communists. He dwelt extensively on the ongoing crisis in the BKP(N) and on his pet topic of Bolshevisation. He claimed that two contrasting events had opened the eyes of the Bulgarian party: at the Leipzig Trial an ex-Narrow proved himself a leading Bolshevik, but the 19 May coup in Bulgaria had exposed those without a Narrow background as inexcusably passive and disoriented. Now he directly accused the ‘young’ – increasingly labelled once again as ‘left sectarians’ – of ‘petit-bourgeois romanticism’ and ‘bookish’ application of unsuitable stereotypes. This had led to an overestimation of the opportunities for revolution in Bulgaria and – worse – to the demoralisation of the mass activists and isolation of the leadership from ordinary supporters. Petur Iskrov, with the underground pseudonym Radi, attracted particular criticism. Dimitrov further lashed out at the internal leaders for disregarding the Comintern: to his mind such behaviour verged on Trotskyism and Zinovievism. At that time there could not have been more incisive and ominous political accusations. To deny that they were personal condemnations is to say that Dimitrov had forgotten the history of splits in the Bulgarian party, all of which ended with personal ostracisms, or that he did not understand how the Soviet law-enforcement institutions functioned. Obviously, Dimitrov cannot be impugned for not foreseeing that those he chastised would fall victim to the Great Terror. Equally, he had never shown any sentimentality

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in his political activity, and his experience in Germany had released a certain ruthlessness in his character. Dimitrov used this speech to restate his loyalties: ‘We have one criterion and it is the attitude to the Comintern, the attitude to the VKP(B), the attitude to Stalin.’ This he upheld as the most fundamental principle for Communists world-wide. In the same breath, Dimitrov resumed specific personal attacks, giving the impression that he was going to settle old scores from his new position of power. Appealing for reassessment of party policy and for urgent cleansing, he pointed directly to those who should be removed: he announced that ‘the declarations of Petrov were not worth a penny’ and ‘we don’t even know the date when Encho became a party member – he should be ousted from the CC’. Strikingly, he was unforgiving of his co-defendants at Leipzig: ‘Here are Popov and Tanev – why didn’t they themselves want to declare their errors?’107 And so Dimitrov chartered the preoccupations of the Bulgarian section of the Comintern for the next few years. He personally chose those who would have the privilege of implementing the new course, mostly comrades who had stayed close to him at previous crucial moments in his career. No other case can demonstrate Dimitrov’s role in the purges among the émigrés as vividly as that of his co-defendants at Leipzig. It showed how fully he was immersed in the mentality which made the purges possible, how a kind of personal malice and a perverse sense of ideological purity and political expediency suffocated any human considerations or rejected the benefit of the doubt. When the three Bulgarians arrived in Moscow, Popov and Tanev were also celebrated, although never accorded the limelight in which Dimitrov basked;108 they were accommodated and given jobs like countless other Communist refugees, but the publicity they had initially enjoyed gradually faded. When in February 1935 they were required to write an article on their experience in Leipzig, they had no inkling of what was in store for them. Dimitrov in fact provided the template for the article: it extolled his own bravery, contrasting it with the errors of the other two. Popov and Tanev admitted to not appreciating the trial as an arena against fascism, from which numerous failures had ensued, such as forsaking the right to a final speech. Then on 25 February Dimitrov directed Popov and Tanev to write an additional statement addressed to the top three in the Comintern leadership, again commending him but castigating themselves and Torgler for ‘disgraceful capitulation’.109 There was a lull until October 1935, when their ‘question’ was reopened by the FB. Shortly afterwards, Dimitrov instructed them to send him another written statement, and when he again found it unsatisfactory, they turned to the ECCI, unable to comprehend what more they were to do to show their sincere remorse and their desire to reform. By 6 December 1935, Popov and Tanev were driven to writing to Stalin personally, remonstrating against an ECCI resolution describing them as ‘cowards, defeatists, near traitors’. For the two Bulgarians this was worse than the fascist jail had been, and they pleaded with Stalin, their last hope, not to be ‘thrown away like motherless children’, as there was no life for them outside the party.110 From the end of March until June 1935 numerous meetings of Bulgarian émigrés in Moscow were conducted by four of Dimitrov’s trusted associates, Kolarov, Stefan

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Dimitrov-Marek, Ivanov and Chervenkov. They carried out a thorough examination of the activities of Bulgarians in the Soviet Union, demanding ruthless self-criticism in the process. This was deemed compulsory on the way to the continuously elusive goal of Bolshevisation. The meetings were extensively planned with and reported to Dimitrov. They centred on the errors of Iskrov, now identified as the main protagonist of the disastrous leftist course. At one of the discussions, Iskrov also spoke, and although he was sufficiently self-effacing, he tried to present his as a middle course between the Kolarov–Dimitrov line and the camp of leftists like Ilia Vassilev-Boyko, Ivan Petrov and Kofardjiev. Although Marek suggested protecting Iskrov for the moment, he thought that Iskrov could not be relied upon ‘to follow the line’ and so should not appear at similar gatherings in future but should instead carry on his selfcriticism in the press. This was seconded by Ivanov, who agreed that Iskrov ‘has not said all he should say’ and had yet to take up the line prescribed by Dimitrov.111 Several ‘left sectarians’ deposited their self-criticisms directly with Dimitrov. In a letter of 9 April 1935 Georgi Lambrev-Rossen admitted to a range of offences – from dissemination of dirty anecdotes about Dimitrov to recognising the party leader ‘without conviction’. He promised to overcome all remnants of dogmatism and intellectualism, but was turned over to the VKP(B), then sent to Irkutsk for Bolshevik re-education, and finally refused a new party ticket. His pleas to Dimitrov were only initialled by the latter, with an instruction for them to be filed away.112 The atmosphere in the Bulgarian émigré colony was not isolated from developments across Soviet society, replete with uncertainty and pre-emptive selfjustification in the wake of Kirov’s murder. All sorts of small-scale intrigues and mutual accusations appeared in the first half of 1935, as some Bulgarians were already standing trial, as members of the VKP(B), before Bolshevik party commissions. One woman in such a situation turned to Dimitrov asking him for a character reference: trying to impress him with sincerity and discipline, she revealed her gravest sin – retelling an anecdote about Stalin and Radek.113 Bulgarian students at the Lenin Institute were also writing to Dimitrov, accusing each other of lack of vigilance and splinter activities.114 In all this, a distinct leitmotif emerged – one of re-emphasising the ideological and political rectitude of Dimitrov and his followers. Whole meetings were devoted to lectures on the wisdom of his past and current actions and views. For instance, on 16 May 1935 a session led by Marek among Bulgarian students at the Lenin Institute heard a series of comments praising the Narrow period, insisting it should be studied, while not forgetting to blame all failures on the ‘left sectarians’. Selfcriticisms for failing to respect Dimitrov’s leadership sufficiently were as frequent as praise for Dimitrov’s character, including one by Chervenkov.115 Dimitrov himself lost no opportunity to improve his image – revising an entry on himself in a political dictionary he unceremoniously deleted a reference to the cathedral bombing in Sofia in April 1925.116 Simultaneously, darker influences were working on him. The Bulgarian Ivan Genchev-Shpiner, an operative of the NKVD, became sufficiently intimate to allow himself the liberty of commenting on Dimitrov’s wife and of warning him about the dangers of overeating. Crucially, Shpiner was intervening behind the scenes in the turbulence afflicting the Bulgarian colony. In a

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message to Dimitrov, he was caustic about an incident where Todor Lukanov had been admitted to a meeting which revealed ‘lack of vigilance, lack of political courage and initiative’. In August 1935 when Lukanov actually wrote to Dimitrov and Kolarov, Shpiner declared that instead of being given the opportunity to conceal his mistakes the man should be ‘finally buried’, ‘expelled from the Soviet party . . . and finally placed where he belonged’. By October 1935, Shpiner had recommended to the Soviet authorities the surveillance and even arrest of Bulgarians such as Encho and was handpicking witnesses for the impending trials.117 Simultaneously, the Bulgarian leadership in Moscow reached out to the internal party. Even while the Seventh Comintern Congress was in full swing, Marek was appointed Secretary of the Internal CC and sent to Bulgaria, together with another Dimitrov faithful, Traicho Kostov. It is likely that they carried out Soviet espionage tasks but primarily they executed personnel and political changes. They ensured that the resolutions of the Seventh Comintern Congress were officially adopted by the Sixth Plenum of the Bulgarian CC in September 1935. This forum also sent a congratulatory letter to Dimitrov, declaring its pride ‘that our party nurtured such a hero’.118 However, in October an open letter from the FB in Moscow insisted on a purge of the local leadership, despite information from the country about the difficult situation of the Communist organisation and its minuscule membership.119 Meanwhile, the new analysis of recent political developments offered by Dimitrov won over most of the top Comintern and Soviet hierarchy. The culmination of this process was his report entitled ‘The Offensive of Fascism and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle for Unity of the Working Class and Against Fascism’, delivered on 2 August 1935 to the Seventh Congress of the Comintern. In the Grand Hall of Pillars in Moscow Dimitrov spoke for five hours, fluently and even theatrically. His confident performance was a sure sign that his initial exploratory ideas had taken a more solid shape and were being translated into official and obligatory policy for all member-parties. Expanding on the definition of the fascist phenomenon as the ‘highest stage of capitalism and imperialism’, Dimitrov explained that it was not an ordinary evolutionary step of bourgeois democracy but a mutation which in fact endangered the very existence of the system that had engendered it. In such extreme circumstances, the working classes should rally around the short-term goal of preserving the existing order; the Communist parties should not attempt to do so in isolation but in unison with other anti-fascist organisations. Here was one of the most significant innovations in terms of Communist tactics, namely the ultimate permissibility of a united front ‘from above’, at the level of leadership, not simply ‘from below’, as the old postulate went. An indication of the radical changes in Comintern thinking was that Dimitrov proposed negotiations with the Socialist International, without preliminary conditions but demanding total fight against fascism, the class enemy and war. But while he was clear on the possibility of joining forces with Socialist parties, he was less so on the participation of other non-fascist formations. A broader coalition, especially if it involved power-sharing was to be decided on the individual merits of each case. Indeed, any popular-front government was probably a transitional form as Dimitrov

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reiterated that the ultimate goal was the dictatorship of the proletariat; he also hinted that in the future a single proletarian party might be established along the principle of democratic centralism.120 Stalin only attended the opening of the congress and did not address the delegates, a detail that sparked a number of speculations about his attitude to the new policy, even though he had not been prominent on earlier Comintern occasions either. In the preparatory discussions he had given no instructions to the Soviet representatives, and had also modified some leftist phrases in the draft congress documents. Manuilsky’s attitude was also indicative: initially he hesitated, then supported Dimitrov, and then after the congress, he seemed to retreat a little.121 Several other discordant notes were heard at the congress – by Béla Kun, who overemphasised the goal of a soviet regime, and the Englishman Harry Pollitt, who maintained that the popular front was not the endgame but a means to an end. But these qualifications were submerged in the overwhelmingly positive acceptance of the innovative ideas. For his part, Stalin bowed to expediency, even if he had no particular preference for the course of action which the congress endorsed. Later, he never referred publicly to the theses of the Seventh Congress and did not dwell on them in his seminal Short Course on the History of the VKP(B).122 Even so, the concept of the popular front did not so much go ahead against his judgement as with his rather lukewarm support. Dimitrov’s centre-stage performance at the congress confirmed his elevation to the top of the international Communist movement. Accordingly, he was formally elected Secretary-General of the Communist International on 21 August 1935; this had first been approved on 10 August by the Soviet Politburo. Unlike previous presidents of the Comintern, Dimitrov’s official title implied more an executive than a policy-making role.123 The Soviet Politburo also confirmed another seven secretaries, each overseeing a group of countries, as the Länder-secretariats were dissolved. Dimitrov himself assumed responsibility for China, of which he knew little; additionally, the Comintern Information Service and Archive operated under his aegis. Protracted and complex as the elaboration of the popular-front idea had been, Dimitrov now faced the much greater challenge of putting it into practice. After the final jubilations of the Seventh Congress subsided, the groundwork of implementing its resolutions across the global Communist movement began. Applying the theoretical formulas to countries ranging from Czechoslovakia to Chile was a challenge which in the first instance depended on the compliance of the national Communist leaders, as well as on their ability to influence and control the lower echelons of their activists. A separate and equally thorny issue was the necessity to instil confidence as to the honourable intentions of the Comintern and its member-parties in the Social Democrat and other centre-left organisations, who for more than a decade had been vocally denounced as traitors to the working classes’ aspirations for social and political justice. After the briefest respite, the cleansing continued in the ranks of the Bulgarian émigrés. In September and October 1935, Radi, Boyko and Encho all appeared before their comrades and were forced to reveal ‘important facts about sectarian practice’; they were now criticised for their ‘insufficient initial criticism’ and often played off against

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one another.124 They were refused personal meetings with Dimitrov, but instead had to address written statements to him; in which they were led to confess the most colossal error of an incorrect attitude to Dimitrov as a leader.125 The campaign to discredit and eliminate the ‘young’ from the Bulgarian party was among the first, and one of the most vicious to take place among the foreign communities in the USSR. Although it had its distinct origins in the Bulgarian party itself, it blended easily enough into the advancing purge within the Soviet party and society at large. By the end of 1935, as suspicion fell increasingly on foreigners, the VKP(B) and the ECCI set up commissions to review the political credentials of all émigrés. The information was deposited with the NKVD, which duly arrested those comrades whose attitudes had been found unsatisfactory. The fate awaiting them was not unknown to Dimitrov. Under his supervision, the ECCI reported a general trend of degeneration and the entry of enemy elements in many fraternal parties.126 Almost without respite, on 17 January 1936 Tanev had to face an émigré meeting: to his original mistakes he was directed to add ‘lack of understanding of the meaning of the mistakes’. He agreed that his suicide attempt in prison had ‘objectively’ helped the Nazis, who aimed to eliminate every single Communist. Finally, he now confessed to joining the ‘sectarians’. After the last point was sharpened, all of this was submitted in writing. A significant part of the deposition was devoted to the leadership of Dimitrov who was called ‘the darling of the Bulgarian people’ and ‘the leader of the international proletariat’. Then the Bulgarian commission demanded another submission, in which Tanev was required to elaborate on several points. On 26 February Tanev wrote to Dimitrov relating his troubles so far and pleading with him: ‘I need help just now and you are the only one who could give it.’ Three more notes followed between 7 and 26 March 1936, from which it is clear that the accusations were becoming increasingly convoluted, but Dimitrov never received the supplicant in person. Similarly and simultaneously, Popov sent at least three letters to Dimitrov – again obtaining no personal response or reaction. Instead, the two were dismissed from their work at the Youth International and Profintern and shortly afterwards were excluded from the party. Kolarov then wrote an article linking Popov and Tanev’s behaviour not only to the ‘sectarian’ line of the early 1930s but also to the failure of the BKP(N) with regard to the coup in May 1934.127 All fraternal parties were affected and many summarily indicted in the accelerating purges. On investigation in the first quarter of 1936, the Hungarian CC was dissolved and replaced with a provisional secretariat. That no one was immune from suspicion and sanction was underlined by the severe criticism of Béla Kun, the figurehead of the Hungarian revolution of 1919, who was subjected to the now-familiar cycle of accusations and self-criticism. He had opposed the popular front even on the eve of the Seventh Comintern Congress, and was now charged with hindering its implementation. In July 1936, Dimitrov himself wrote to Nikolay Yezhov, who was at the time head of the Bolshevik party Control Commission and would shortly become chief of the NKVD, proposing that Kun had been systematically discrediting the Comintern and should not be allowed to work for the ECCI or remain in Moscow. In September 1936, Dimitrov retracted somewhat, agreeing that Kun’s activities should

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not be labelled ‘harmful’.128 Yet, such minor softening was both temporary and exceptional; on the verge of the rapid acceleration of the Great Terror, Dimitrov was hardly only a bystander. His daily routine involved checking and reporting to the Soviet Politburo on all Comintern sections. A telling example of the nature of the persecution is that the files of both national leaders like Kun and Kuusinen and ECCI operatives like Chernomordik and Blagoeva contained alerts relating to their Social Democrat past. This was hardly a simple failure to remember that Communist parties had not existed before 1919 – under this procedure Dimitrov himself would have earned suspicion – and was quite beside the fact that at that particular moment the Comintern was directing its members to participate in a common front with Social Democracy. The Kamenev–Zinoviev trial in the summer of 1936 intensified the checks of the ECCI apparatus where some of the defendants had worked. With Dimitrov’s approval the Department of Cadres forwarded to the NKVD around 3,000 files on émigrés. Dimitrov was often acquainted in great detail with the cases against the suspects.129 In August 1936 he resumed his diary after an 18-month silence following Kirov’s murder. The idea that he had stopped recording his deeds and thoughts because these might be used for his own incrimination is somewhat limited and tendentious. Nothing as tangible as a written document was required for a condemnation, and Dimitrov knew this well. In any event his diary remained selective and laconic: while registering the start of the trial of Kamenev and Zinoviev and their execution he had nothing to say about their pleas for mercy, which were ignored. When noting that an article of his had been published, he did not mention that it dwelt on the trial, claiming that ‘helping the vile terrorists equals helping fascism’.130 In September 1936, in a special brochure, Kolarov again linked the Bulgarian ‘sectarians’ to Trotskyism. This triggered a wave of terror during which one group of émigrés in southern Russia were accused of a plot to annex Ukraine to Bulgaria, and others of a mass conspiracy spying for the West. In October 1936 five Bulgarians, including Pavlov-Encho, were shot for having set up a ‘counter-revolutionary organisation preparing terrorist actions against the leaders of the BKP’.131 Practically all decisions for exclusion from the BKP(N) were taken by a commission of Dimitrov’s closest lieutenants and countersigned by him.132 It was hardly a coincidence that those who perished were precisely the groups with whom Dimitrov had clashed in the long internal struggles of the 1920s and early 1930s. The criticisms were familiar; but now Dimitrov had the advantage of being able to resort to the Soviets’ repressive machine. When the ongoing Soviet purge affected Bulgarians against whom he bore no grudge, Dimitrov and his faithful deputies assumed the attitude that ‘the Soviet authorities did not arrest any Soviet citizen without serious reason’. The arrest of the Bulgarian-born military expert Krum Buchvarov in late September 1936 led Anton Ivanov to speculate that ‘our shithead’ probably got involved in ‘some pseudo-school of military science which in fact hid Trotsky–Zinoviev elements and aimed at compromising the Red Army’. Ivanov suggested to Dimitrov that the case should serve to intensify the appraisal of émigrés.133 In the light of all this, the later claim of the Yugoslav Milovan

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Djilas that the Bulgarians in Russia were defended by Dimitrov rings distinctly hollow.134 That Dimitrov appeared at the top of the Soviet party at key moments in the Purge is illustrated by his attendance on 4 December 1936 at the Soviet Central Committee where Yezhov exposed the counter-revolutionary activities of the Trotskyites, as well as of the so-called ‘rightist opposition’. His diary sketched ‘tears and assertions of innocence’ as well as Stalin’s pronouncement ‘that the words of former oppositionists should not be believed’.135 Later in the same month, Dimitrov witnessed another discussion of the trial in the Kremlin, and also read the confessions of Radek and his co-accused. In January 1937 at a meeting of the Secretariat of the ECCI Dimitrov addressed the danger of underestimating Trotskyism which existed in most West European parties, and which meant almost losing the fight against it. He insisted on classifying Trotskyism as an ‘ideological and political ally of fascism, a weapon of capitalism and counter-revolution’. For him, this was obvious from the fact that at that moment Trotskyites were committing sabotage and other crimes in the USSR, while in Spain they were helping the fascist rebels. Dimitrov proposed the formula that ‘it was impossible to overcome fascism without destroying Trotskyism within the workers’ movement’. This should feature in the campaign explaining the Moscow trials abroad and within the Communist movement; the campaign itself should be offensive, not defensive.136 Dimitrov’s presentation was the foundation for two resolutions of the ECCI Presidium, ‘On the Conduct of the Campaign Against Trotskyism’ and ‘On the Result of the Trials Against the Trotskyites’. These claimed that the accused had been revealed as ‘the most dastardly enemies of the Soviet Union, enemies of the people’s liberty and independence, advocates of the restoration of capitalism in the USSR, and warmongers’. Furthermore, a process of verification of the ranks of both Communist and affiliated organisations was called for, so as to expose ‘double-dealing Trotskyites’.137 A slightly different view had already been put to Dimitrov by the writer Lion Feuchtwanger in December, and was reiterated on 2 February. The known German anti-Nazi agreed that the accused were enemies, who deserved extermination. Yet he was dismayed at the slanders such as ‘cowards’ and ‘reptiles’, and ‘the extraordinary unrest created among the population even after Trotskyism had been killed’. 138 The fact that Dimitrov recorded these words, adding that the trial was ‘monstrous’ does not necessarily translate into sympathy for the accused or disagreement with the procedures. If the conversation with Feuchtwanger had made Dimitrov wonder whether an atmosphere of mutual mistrust and suspicion had been artificially created, nothing in his actions betrayed it. On 5 February 1937 the commission under Mikhail Moskvin, the NKVD liaison at the ECCI, created a year earlier to look into the credentials of the Comintern central staff, issued its report. 58 people were lined up for removal, more than half of them foreigners and a third Germans.139 Dimitrov personally scrutinised the lists, and whenever he changed a recommendation it was usually for the worse. In the Bulgarian context, Kolarov again branded the ‘young’ as Trotskyites and claimed

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that ‘all opposition against the VKP(B) eventually transforms into hostility’, proving it by examples amongst the Bulgarian émigrés in Russia; many of those he mentioned had already been suppressed and killed.140 Stalin was dissatisfied with the Comintern resolutions, telling Dimitrov that little in them would dispel the view among European workers that a personal disagreement had developed between himself and Trotsky. He pointed out that the resolutions should draw attention to the Trotskyites’ fight against Lenin, and quote directly from the recent court proceedings. Stalin eventually declared that the resolutions were ‘stupid’ and accused all at the Comintern of ‘working for the enemy’. 141 Dimitrov immediately set to revise the documents, although having to call his associates to his home – he had meanwhile fallen ill. On 18 February Sergo Ordjonikidze, a member of the Soviet Politburo, committed suicide; Dimitrov could not bring himself to record the full facts in his diary, only writing that ‘Sergo died!’ He oversaw the publication of an obituary on behalf of the ECCI, stood in the guard of honour at the coffin and attended the funeral. The drama was only a brief respite from current political struggles, and three days later Dimitrov attended a plenum of the CC of the VKP(B), witnessing a clash between Stalin and Yezhov, on the one hand, and Bukharin and Alexey Rykov, on the other. He commented that after Stalin’s presentation the atmosphere ‘became lighter’; Stalin’s concluding remarks on 5 March contained ‘very valuable guidance’ and gave the plenum ‘historic significance’. The day after the plenum, the Dimitrovs were cheerful enough to view an out-of-town villa that soon became their country residence.142 The interest in this was most likely driven by the imminent arrival of their child. The plenum that set off the mass purges across Russia was met with complete solidarity by the ECCI. At the specially convened meeting, Manuilsky and Kuusinen emphasised the unprecedented unity and coherence of the Comintern and confirmed their loyalty to the genius Stalin and his disciple Dimitrov. 143 The latter, in close cooperation with Moskvin and Manuilsky, followed up on the previous measures for cleansing the apparatus and the member-parties. Two more ECCI resolutions, of 8 March and 9 April, asserted the need for greater alertness towards enemy infiltration, although Stalin’s concerns at the plenum that not all who had once strayed should be uprooted were included as an afterthought. And yet, the ‘master’ of the Comintern was painfully sensitive to the slightest hint from Stalin. On a visit to Stalin’s villa on 16 March, he and fellow ECCI members André Marty and Palmiro Togliatti were met ‘especially gladly’. But the foreign Communists soon became the butt of Stalin’s jokes, and Dimitrov felt that he himself came out of it particularly badly. Stalin said: ‘Ercoli had a detachment, Marty organised the International Brigades, but the Bulgarians were never seen. So we asked the Academy of Sciences to research this issue.’ Stalin was apparently very pleased with his witticism, and repeated it amid general jocularity; only Dimitrov wondered if this was ‘accidental’.144 It is more than likely that such insecurity led him to double his zeal in dealing with all potential opposition amongst the foreigners. Liaising continuously with the Soviet Politburo, and on constant high alert regarding Stalin’s mood and outlook, Dimitrov approached the daily labour of the

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Comintern in a hands-on fashion. By nature he was a workaholic and domineering; in the present sensitive and volatile political moment, allowing his attention to stray could be fatal. Indeed, the ambition to define and capture the global trends required that the chief of the Comintern should not only oversee the formulation of broad guidelines but above all should monitor all actions and pronouncements of the national parties. His attention was exclusively focused on Europe where ‘Bolshevised’ Communist parties operated and where the concept of the popular front had created expectations across a wide political and social spectrum. This was facilitated by relatively good communications and above all by the prevailing consensus at local level that consultation and coordination with Moscow was of mutual benefit. As Communist leaders such as the French Maurice Thorez, the Italian Togliatti and the Spanish José Días were in constant contact with Dimitrov, they became some of his most important allies and advisers. In turn, his trust in them added to their own authority and significance. The popular-front policy was understood to be universally applicable, irrespective of the particular situations of the Comintern sections. Dimitrov led discussions about its specifics in a number of countries, yet circumstances dictated that his immediate work centred on the flagship cases of France and Spain. In the course of 1934–5 the French Communists had pioneered ad-hoc, action-oriented collaboration with the Socialists and Radicals, even before the official proclamation of the popular-front doctrine in Moscow. Ironically, as the Popular Front coalition won the elections in May 1936 and the Communist representation in the French Parliament reached the unprecedented level of 15 per cent, the position of the French Communist Party (PCF) became more complicated. It was torn along various fault lines, for instance between its aspiration to appear a responsible government party which supported internal stability and national security, and its long-standing internationalist commitment to the interests of the Soviet Union. Abandoning their traditional pacifism, the French Communists supported rearmament, with a view to reinforcing the French role in the ‘collective security’ that Stalin was trying to engineer in order to curtail Hitler’s disturbing diplomatic and military successes. Most importantly, the PCF, which had played a significant role in raising demands and expectations at the grassroots, was placed in an unenviable position when a wave of strikes and factory occupations broke out shortly after the Popular Front assumed power in June 1936. The party was first caught by surprise, and then forced to make a controversial appeal for the cessation of the workers’ activism. In agreement with the Comintern and above all, the Soviet leadership, it paid the political price of putting on hold its social and economic agenda so that it preserved the Radicals’ nervous participation in the coalition; an added strategic consideration, of which Moscow was informed, was the necessity of ensuring that the French economy, and in particular the defence industry, were not affected by political and social upheaval.145 Paradoxically, it was the French Socialists who were the more consistent enforcers of radical welfare measures and of far-reaching economic reforms such as the nationalisation of key industries. The PCF’s complex and contradictory tactics were at the heart of its refusal to enter the government led by the Socialist Léon Blum.

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Transmitting Stalin’s opinion, Dimitrov specifically reassured Thorez that the Communists were allowed to criticise the government publicly: this did not mean that they should bring about its downfall. With Stalin’s sanction, the Comintern strove to manoeuvre the French Communists into a position where they had freedom and flexibility – where they remained part of the government’s parliamentary majority but also were able to form independent views on particular problems. Ultimately, the PCF’s popular-front policy boiled down to preserving the Popular Front, but this was precisely what made it appear uncommitted and easily manipulated by Moscow. Dimitrov was the French Communists’ exclusive point of contact with Stalin and the Soviet leadership. On most occasions, Thorez, Marty and Duclos reported directly to and received instructions from him. They rarely met Soviet CC members, and then practically always accompanied by Dimitrov.146 On his part, Dimitrov never failed to clear any specific advice with Stalin and the Soviet Politburo. It was Stalin who in midDecember 1936 set the tone for further Communist criticism of Blum, calling him a ‘charlatan’.147 While in France the Popular Front was slowly collapsing under the weight of internal contradictions and international dilemmas, its Spanish counterpart followed a much more dramatic and labyrinthine path. In October–November 1935, full of optimism after the resounding success of its recent congress, the Comintern was instrumental in engineering a wide coalition in the forthcoming elections in Spain. As the ECCI’s representative, Duclos had some difficulty in persuading both the small Spanish Communist Party (PCE) and the leftist wing of the Socialists (PSOE) to ally with a range of disparate political actors, including the powerful anarchist trade unions and the autonomous Catalan Communists (POUM). Although campaigning on a moderate programme dominated by anti-fascism, the electoral victory of the Popular Front in February 1936 precipitated massive popular actions calling for genuinely revolutionary change. From the outset, this had clearly not been the intention of the Comintern: on 22 May Dimitrov reinforced the need for caution and moderation and the priority of keeping the coalition together. 148 At this point, he temporised on the question of whether the Communists should participate in government, observing that such a step should be taken only when it was certain it would strengthen the Popular Front. Even when General Franco declared a revolt against the Republic on 18 July, Dimitrov thought it inappropriate that the PCE should assume direct ministerial responsibility, conscious that this would add to the accusations of the extreme right that the Popular Front was a facade for Bolshevik-style revolution. Dispelling such assumptions not only in Spain but in the wider international community was as pressing a priority as it had been in relation to the French situation. Dimitrov was dissatisfied with the first report from Días and the Comintern representative Vittorio Codovilla on the start of the civil war, judging their information as ‘insufficient, unspecific and sentimental’. Nonetheless, he duly forwarded it to Stalin, who also approved the Comintern’s response, dated 23 July. In it Dimitrov unequivocally stated that the PCE’s most urgent task was to fight and defeat the fascist rebels: nothing should be done that might undermine the Popular Front but the democratic Republic should be wholeheartedly supported. Dimitrov specifically warned that the

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Communists should not be tempted by plans ‘which could be pursued after victory’. 149 Simply put, winning the civil war took priority over revolutionary social change. The Communists in Spain were coached to preserve the broad coalition at almost all costs; ironically such compromise did not fare well with the more militant anarchists and POUM, who were both eager for radical reforms and deeply suspicious of the Moscow loyalists. As Spain plunged into civil war it became a political cause which deepened the splits in the already tense European societies and added to the strain within the international community. As the clashes between the Republic and Franco’s Nationalists reverberated far beyond their country’s borders, they became an issue around which the Soviet Union tried to gather international support for its anti-fascist strategy. Although support for the Spanish Popular Front was spontaneous and widespread, in its traditional manner the Comintern still tried to orchestrate the contributions of its member parties. Thus Dimitrov appeared at the centre of both Communist and Soviet policy: he monitored developments in each country and made sure that the local Communist forces abided by the affirmed principles of policy. He was also one of the channels for forwarding information to Stalin and, most importantly, for conveying Stalin’s views and advice back to the Communist and Comintern activists in the field. The Soviet predicament was acute, as intervention was one of the few alternatives that could help the Spanish Republic, yet it would instantly pose serious questions as to Stalin’s intentions and how these were reflected in the actions of the Comintern parties.150 That Dimitrov and his institution were intermediaries rather than initiators with regard to Spain is evident from several definitive examples. On 28 August 1936, Dimitrov attended a meeting of the Soviet Politburo that examined the possibility of setting up International Brigades in support of the Republic. On 2 September he authorised the entry of the PCE in the Republican government, but only after this had been first discussed with Molotov, Kaganovich, Voroshilov and Ordjonikidze, and subsequently approved by Stalin. Two days later, two Communist ministers took lowprofile portfolios in a reformed Spanish cabinet under the colourful Socialist, Largo Caballero. Further, on 14 September Dimitrov was once again in conference with the Soviet leaders, who were resolved to extend military aid to the Spanish government ‘through a smuggling combination’.151 On none of these occasions did Dimitrov present a particular view, keeping instead to the facts as gathered on the ground and subsequently directing his subordinates to carry out the decisions. In the next six months, he was involved in numerous reviews of developments in Spain, but his attitude and approach consistently shadowed those of the Kremlin. On the other hand, it is notable that he was regularly updated on Soviet actions, such as the sending-in of military advisers and various supplies of weaponry and humanitarian aid. Only once, on 18 September, did Dimitrov venture something novel, declaring at a meeting of the ECCI that the Spanish Republic would be an ‘anti-fascist state’ and as such differ from both classic bourgeois democracy and the Soviet model. He supported this by the customary reference to Lenin, who had envisaged the possibility of ‘a special form of democratic dictatorship of the working class and the peasantry’. That this was

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a fresh formula is evident from the mini-clash that it caused among the secretaries of the ECCI where Knorin questioned whether the Spanish Popular Front could advance beyond the interests of bourgeois democracy, while Manuilsky and Togliatti demonstrated conviction in the unique character and monumental tasks of the Spanish experiment. In his impromptu theoretical musings Dimitrov might have been emboldened by support for the Comintern line received only four days earlier: in an exchange about the difficulties of the popular-front policy Molotov had dismissed the possibility that these spelt the inadequacy of the whole concept. Going further, on 16 September Kaganovich had praised Dimitrov personally for the successes of the popular front and for bringing ‘European spirit’ to the Comintern.152 The Comintern managed the recruitment of the International Brigades of volunteers from across the world. As these were predominantly – although not only – Communists, one of Dimitrov’s major tasks was to organise their political leadership, mainly through the Bolshevik-style institution of the political commissar. More often than not, experienced Comintern hands took the position: while solidarity, dedication and discipline were instilled, the practice raised concerns about coordination with the regular Spanish army, and about the ultimate loyalty of fighters trained and indoctrinated by the Soviets. The repercussions of this were appreciated even by Stalin, who at the end of 1936 postulated that the number of volunteers should be limited and recruitment frozen – although the ECCI was later allowed to continue. The fears on the rightist end of the Popular Front were not dispelled by the concerted efforts of the PCE to extol military priority and stability in the rear, as seen in a manifesto it produced on 15 December. This was endorsed by a letter from Stalin to the Spanish leaders, expressing his satisfaction with the Communists’ functioning within the parliamentary system; he advised them to think of securing support from the middle strata of society. Stalin’s most significant point was that the Popular Front should at all costs avoid being perceived as a Communist republic. Undoubtedly aware of Stalin’s letter, within ten days the ECCI had backed up the Spanish manifesto. Seeking to reassure the more liberal elements in the incongruous coalition, the Communists inevitably antagonised the more revolutionary ones. In early 1937, the anarchists and the POUM expressed dissatisfaction with the distribution of arms to their autonomous militias – one of the symptoms of a growing rift. And while overtly praising legality, democracy and parliamentarianism, the Communists considered the Trotskyite elements dangerous enough to deal with them in the only way they knew how to silence political opponents. The Republican security services, firmly in the grip of Communists, Comintern operatives and Soviet special agents, started to arrest and execute POUM supporters and known anarchists. The build-up of tension exploded in open fighting in Barcelona in the early days of May 1937, after which the radical left were defeated, excluded from the government and largely exterminated. This was all done in the name of winning the civil war, where all anti-fascists should unite around a moderate bourgeois democratic project.153 Insisting that revolution was inappropriate in Spain, for domestic and international reasons, Stalin required a vicious purge of the most radical leftist forces, which from his point of view were uncontrollable, and therefore unreliable. It is hard to say whether it was an extension of the logic and

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methods of the concurrent Great Terror. The Comintern’s and Dimitrov’s precise involvement is also not entirely clear, especially in relation with the Soviet special services. Dimitrov was not even willing to back firmly the Comintern’s political experts on the ground if their judgement went against Stalin’s counsel. In September 1937, the ECCI approved Stalin’s call for new Cortes in Spain, even if Togliatti believed this useless. Similarly, it was Stalin’s idea that the Comintern should call for the nationalisation of industry and the banks.154 Against a background of a deteriorating political and military situation in the Republic after mid-1937, Dimitrov seized the occasion of a particularly vicious German attack on the coastal town of Almeria to support a joint call by the PCE and PSOE for common action by the Socialist International and the Comintern in defence of the Republic. On behalf of the latter, Togliatti, Thorez and Díaz attended two meetings with international Social Democrat dignitaries but nothing of substance emerged. Until the end of the Spanish Republic, Dimitrov continued to appeal for united campaigns by the Internationals and their members across the Western world. While humanitarian aid for Spain was consistently seen as a worthwhile cause in most societies, the impression remains that, for the Comintern, propaganda centring on the Spanish tragedy was also an instrument for attracting cross-sectional support and sympathy for the Communist parties. As the Republic was slowly being stifled, in February 1938 Stalin abruptly demanded the exit of the Spanish Communists from government – his directive crossing with a letter from Togliatti actually insisting on greater Communist involvement.155 In September 1938, as the ECCI urged the PCE to work for national unity and against defeatism, the International Brigades were ordered to leave Spain, a move that now signalled Stalin’s resignation to the defeat of the Popular Front. Against the background of little subsequent Soviet concern for the fate of many displaced international fighters for the Spanish Republic, Dimitrov recorded a rare initiative: on 26 August 1939, together with Manuilsky he signed an appeal to Stalin to give asylum to some 5,000 former inter-brigadists languishing in France.156 In all this there is little evidence of Dimitrov’s original views on Spain, apart from the broad-brush pronouncements on anti-fascism and the popular front. The organisation he led was little more than a transmitter of Soviet actions abroad, though it also acted as a pool of information and analysis, secured and indoctrinated the necessary personnel and provided logistical and communications support. It was unable to offer specific, lasting solutions to the political and practical dilemmas of the PCE, as many of these were engendered by the Comintern and Soviet strategy itself. This picture was largely replicated in other parts of the world. China was of special interest as it too was in the throes of civil war – albeit an undeclared one – as the Communists challenged the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek. Its strategic significance for the Soviet Union could not be overestimated either, particularly in view of the growing Japanese pretensions in the Far East. While the main Comintern line adhered to the popular front, Dimitrov, evidently under the influence of more radical local cadres, sent Stalin a document on 14 April 1936 written by Comintern specialists and proposing slight deviations from the new orthodoxy. Although general

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support for a united front with the Chinese Nationalists was upheld, there were suggestions for the dissolution of the Nationalist Party, the organisation of a people’s liberation army and of Chinese soviets. There is no evidence that Stalin approved the document, and it remained in the archives. Nevertheless, in the summer of 1936, a significant group within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) consciously interpreted the official Comintern policy as justifying a struggle against the Nationalists. Aware that Stalin would not make an exception to common tactics, the ECCI prepared a second directive to the CCP, one that emphasised the paramount necessity of negotiations and compromise with the Nationalists. On subsequent occasions, such as a conversation with Dimitrov on 26 November, Stalin persisted along two parallel lines: the Chinese Communists should tone down their propaganda and actions, for instance giving up the practice of soviets as organs of revolutionary power in the areas it controlled. Simultaneously, they should work for the constitution of a coalition government to focus on national defence.157 Dimitrov was regularly updated on Soviet transfers of arms and ammunition to the CCP, as well as on the provision of large sums of money. Stalin’s confidence, however, could not be taken for granted, and sharp questions were put to the Comintern leader when things went wrong. One such occasion was the tangled incident in December 1936 when Chiang Kai-shek was captured in Xian by one of the local warlords. At midnight on 14 December Stalin rang Dimitrov, demanding to know whether the events had been sanctioned by the Comintern and whether Wang Ming, the Chinese representative at the ECCI, was ‘a provocateur’. Despite Dimitrov’s negative answer to both questions, Stalin said that he intended to show him a telegram in which Wang had ordered the murder of Chiang. 158 The implication of these words was that Dimitrov was either politically incompetent or unacceptably misinformed of developments in China. In the following years Dimitrov repeatedly admonished the CCP to cooperate with the Nationalists against the danger of fascism in the form of Japanese aggression. The internal Chinese leadership, locked in its own power struggles, repeatedly accepted the directives from Moscow on paper but challenged them in practice.159 Yet the difficulties over China could hardly be laid only at Dimitrov’s door; the Soviet state, army and secret services had their own advisers and special operatives there, and the Comintern’s role can be seen as little more than the supporting presence of an international ‘political commissar’, albeit not a very successful one. Wang, who was personally close to Dimitrov – after Wang’s return to China his daughter was fostered by Dimitrov and his wife – was unable to establish himself as a dominant influence in the CCP, and in August 1937 Mao Tse-dong triumphed over the other pretenders for the leadership. Pragmatism and global strategy dictated the attitude of the Comintern, which had little choice but to accept the situation on the ground. Even in Dimitrov’s native Bulgaria, the implementation of the popular front in the spring of 1936 was causing difficulties, as many internal activists saw it as an opportunity to further the splits in the Agrarians and Social Democrats – hardly a novel ambition. It took all Dimitrov’s patience and eloquence to emphasise that ‘our party is the initiator of a joint struggle with the Agrarian Union, the SDP, the Radical

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Party, the Democratic Party and all economic and cultural organisations against fascism’. However, a future agenda could occasionally be glimpsed, when for instance he explained that it was not necessary ‘yet to talk of our hegemony’, implying that this was merely being postponed to a later moment. 160 At the same time, a certain opportunism with regard to the policy of cooperation was visible in Bulgaria: in late 1936, Dimitrov’s representatives were well into negotiations with the Zveno, who were now marginalised from power and therefore rather interested in the Communists’ attempts to build a broad coalition. In November 1936 the former Zveno Premier Kimon Georgiev outlined his ideas about cooperation with the BKP(N) in another coup.161 Dimitrov did not fail to consult Stalin on any programmatic issues that he encountered. This was of course logical behaviour for someone whose work closely mirrored the policy of the Soviet government, whether in its diplomacy or its relations with fraternal parties. Dimitrov was almost an associate member of the Soviet government, with the privileges and responsibilities emanating from this. He led an organisation which was an agent of Soviet policy, not an independent contributor to its making. By May 1937 the Purge was increasingly eroding the Comintern ranks. After Gevoti Alikhanov, the deputy head of the Cadres Department of the ECCI, was arrested on 25 May 1937, anyone could be next. On 26 May Dimitrov stayed until one o’clock in the morning with Yezhov, who echoed Stalin in saying ‘the biggest spies worked at the Comintern’. In the morning Dimitrov set up Manuilsky, Moskvin and himself as a Special Control Commission responsible for the ensuing check at the Comintern headquarters. Special attention was given to the representatives of the fraternal parties, of whom four-fifths were removed.162 As some could be sent home instead of handed over to the NKVD, the Special Commission could be credited with protecting them; however this was hardly its prime concern. Altogether more than half of the roughly 500 employees were dismissed as no longer commanding the confidence of the leadership; many of these had been identified with the help of the NKVD. That the purge was highly explosive and to some extent unpredictable was illustrated when at an internal meeting on 22 June 1937 rank-and-file Comintern officials turned against some of their direct superiors, and denounced them for corruption, nepotism and inefficiency; Dimitrov’s biographer Stella Blagoeva, who also worked at the Cadres Department, was among those mentioned.163 By October Dimitrov, who was still dismissing Comintern employees, had to explain to the NKVD and the VKP(B) that he needed a certain minimum of staff as already some of the vital services, such as communication with the member-parties, were affected.164 Again, although this approach might have saved some personnel from imminent arrest, its driving force was far from humanitarian. The Special Commission revealed the Polish section of the Comintern to be completely ‘in the hands of the enemy’. Hundreds of Poles in the Soviet Union had been arrested already, but at this point the attention of the NKVD focused on the leadership. This coincided with entries in Dimitrov’s diary about the arrival of a number of Polish activists whom he had ‘recalled to Moscow’. Among them was Julian

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Lenski, a member of the ECCI who had resided in Paris. One after the other, people like Henryk Walecki, the editor of the journal Communist International, and Edward Prochniak, another member of the ECCI, ‘went to Yezhov’. In early September, Dimitrov saw the confessions they had made while under arrest. 165 Although initially the troubles in the Polish party were hardly unique, ultimately drastic measures were enforced. By late November 1937 Dimitrov was deeply involved in the preparation of a memorandum proposing the dissolution of the Polish Communist Party. Countermanding Dimitrov’s initial suggestion that this should be publicly announced, Stalin imposed the dissolution in secret: only six of the 19 members of the ECCI Presidium saw and signed the memorandum – Dimitrov was joined by Manuilsky, Wilhelm Florin, Moskvin, Kuusinen and Togliatti.166 In Leipzig Goering had mentioned that a Communist revolutionary court would probably follow short formalities before shooting its enemies.167 In some cases this was indeed what happened, but in many others the agony of those under investigation in the USSR lasted for years before they even reached court. In July 1937, Iskrov was described as ‘a sorrowful sight’ when giving his next round of explanations for ‘four hours without saying anything articulate’.168 He and Vassilev-Boyko were arrested only in late 1937, having proclaimed adherence to the ‘Stalinist positions of comrade Dimitrov’.169 Popov was arrested on 7 November 1937 and accused of being an active Trotskyite planning to kill Dimitrov and Kolarov and to take over the Bulgarian leadership-in-exile.170 He was to spend 15 years in the gulag, from which he repeatedly wrote to Dimitrov. Tanev was arrested in 1938, but sent on a special mission in enemy territory several years later, when he was killed. Popov voiced the disillusionment of many: I could not imagine that [Dimitrov] would go to a reception with Stalin and Beria when he knew perfectly – yes, he knew, that the accusation of planning to murder him . . . was a plain, mean lie. Dimitrov and Kolarov knew my whole life in detail, I thought they would never accept that I was capable of such a hellish plot. But why then did they keep silent, why didn’t they come to meet me, why didn’t they want to bear witness in court?171

Little did the desperate man suspect that in all probability those who conducted the repressions were not simply governed by ideological zeal and political correctness, but were themselves also confused and frightened. What made Dimitrov even more alert, aware that no one was above suspicion, was his occasional exclusion from important gatherings of the Soviet elite. Susceptible to political over-interpretation of the most innocuous moves, Dimitrov felt practically disgraced when on 7 November he was not invited to the balcony of Lenin’s mausoleum to watch the traditional parade in Stalin’s presence. Still, he was invited to a dinner that evening where he heard Stalin go over a list of well-known Communists, among them Rakovski, Knorin and Kun, who were all accused of various anti-party activities and of espionage for a range of foreign services. While Knorin and Kun were not Dimitrov’s favourites, it is notable that Dimitrov hardly felt for Rakovski, whom he had met in Moscow and admired a few years earlier – there was no room for

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sentiment that evening, let alone argument in favour of the disgraced. Very much to the contrary – Stalin’s warning that even old Bolsheviks would be destroyed ‘mercilessly’, together with their ‘whole family and kin’ was immediately endorsed by Dimitrov. He promised that he would personally oversee a ruthless eradication of all enemies in the Comintern. In the same breath, he flattered Stalin as the rightful heir of Lenin, but was once again reminded of his own precarious situation, Stalin commenting that Comrade Dimitrov’s statement was ‘not even Marxist’, and that he should be more concerned with the middle ranks than with the leaders.172 Only four days later, in a meeting with Chinese Communists, Stalin recalled his dissatisfaction with the ECCI declaration on the trials of the Trotskyites, demanding that the enemy be persecuted, shot and destroyed. Among these enemies he even enlisted Münzenberg, whom Dimitrov was directly charged with enticing to Moscow to be arrested. This he duly attempted to do, although without success.173 The whole of Dimitrov’s world was severely affected by the Great Terror: friends and family of such foreign leaders as Tito, Togliatti, Pieck, Walter Ulbricht and many other top European Communists disappeared after being summoned by the NKVD.174 The Purge did not stop even at the highest reaches of the VKP(B), where for instance the wives of Molotov, Budyonny and Kalinin were arrested. Nothing made Dimitrov immune to suspicion, and the scenarios through which many of his compatriots and colleagues were victimised could without difficulty be turned against him. The complexity of Dimitrov’s situation is well illustrated by his intervention in favour of some suspects. By December 1936 he had already started receiving requests for the reopening of cases and for help in overturning verdicts, but a more active stance on his part is noticeable after mid-1937. On 13 November 1937, the Bulgarian FB formulated a request to the ECCI to intervene on behalf of some arrested Bulgarians; however the ECCI took no action on this until a full year later.175 Wilhelm Pieck appealed to Dimitrov for the protection of a list of Germans. Tito attributed his own survival to Dimitrov, who had expressed doubts about the scale of repression.176 However, Ernst Fischer made a contrary claim, that when approached in relation to the arrests Dimitrov called for patience and faith in Soviet institutions, often stating he had neither the right nor the power to intervene. Ultimately, Dimitrov was prepared to intervene on behalf of few of his closest collaborators. It was rumoured among the Bulgarians in Moscow that Chervenkov had hidden in his brother-in-law’s house and thus escaped a midnight arrest.177 Further, Dimitrov wrote in support of his fellow leader from the ‘old guard’ in the BKP(N), Kabakchiev.178 After the plenum of the CC of the VKP(B) of February 1938 which criticised overzealousness in the purges, tensions began to subside and the atmosphere became more amenable to appeals and enquiries.179 The arrest on 7 November 1938 of Ferdinand Kozovski led Dimitrov to address Yezhov, his successor as NKVD chief Lavrenty Beria and their deputy Vsevolod Merkulov with an unprecedented avalanche of letters and enquiries, until a year later there was a positive result. On Kozovski’s release in November 1939, Dimitrov immediately met him, acknowledging his support publicly.180 However, his actions were often contradictory, to say the least: for instance, in October 1938 he dismissed his personal assistant Elena Valter, who had served him

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since his arrival from Germany, even though – or precisely because – it was certain she would be arrested. He paid little attention to her plight until mid-1940, despite her personal appeals.181 For lesser Bulgarian émigrés, Dimitrov took action only after being appealed to by relatives – and then mostly by putting names and short references on lists forwarded to the NKVD or the prosecutor’s office. The first such document dated from 7 December 1938; in it, prompted first by the representation of the BKP(N) at the ECCI, Dimitrov asked Beria to speed up the investigation of 120 detainees. Dimitrov hoped it would become clear that honest Communists had been framed by enemies of the people. It was only two years later that he couched his letters in more precise terms, for instance writing in July 1940 to Beria and the CC Secretary, Georgiy Malenkov (who was close to Stalin), that a number of the arrested were ‘beyond suspicion’ and that ‘some of the confessions were fantastic’.182 Significantly, only one list was sent before the start of the Second World War, and only two before the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Indeed, most of Dimitrov’s enquiries ended with brief replies to his notes, confirming the arrests and upholding the accusations and sentences. Dimitrov often replied to those who dared raise the issue that he could do nothing: this was and simultaneously was not the case. Recalling the fact that even as late as February 1941 Molotov had not really defended his wife, who was purged for lack of vigilance, hardly proves anything. Incidentally, on this very issue Dimitrov wrote in his diary that he considered Molotov’s behaviour – abstaining in the vote against his wife – ‘hardly correct’.183 Later, Chervenkov claimed to have written to Dimitrov in defence of many of the purged Bulgarians, insisting that even those who had opposed the present leadership were not enemies of the party. He received no reply,184 and no documentary evidence of such an approach has been found. Estimates of the Bulgarians who perished in Stalin’s Terror vary between 400 and 600. Out of 130 members of the CC of the BKP(N) who went to the Soviet Union in 1923–44, 28 were arrested and 21 were killed or died in prison.185 Most ‘left sectarians’, including the most prominent one, Iskrov, perished, while some of the older guard, for instance Lukanov and Kabakchiev, suffered repression but survived. In September 1938, Dimitrov started copying all his official correspondence to Moskvin, most likely as a precaution against possible accusations. It soon became clear that this might have totally opposite consequence, as Moskvin himself was arrested in November 1938 and revealed to ‘have been tightly connected to all that crowd’.186 The following day Dimitrov worked on the case in Beria’s office with the prosecutor Vyshinsky and Merkulov, finding out about several other traitors. 187 This set in motion the reopening of a number of cases at the Comintern. But already Yezhov had submitted his resignation, and even if the repression did not end, its scope and intensity abated. Most of Dimitrov’s attempts to help came after this date. In January 1939 he was drawing attention to the fact that the Comintern centre did not have a single Pole, Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian to work with. The Swiss Communist Jules Humbert-Droz obtained an exit visa with Dimitrov’s help – at the cost of penning an article against Bukharin.188 It was two years later and in completely changed

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circumstances that Dimitrov intervened with the NKVD to prevent the wholesale arrest of all Germans working at the Comintern. Many of Dimitrov’s approaches to the Soviet security services were formally explained by bureaucratic necessity, and it seems that this motivated him at least as much as a desire to redress injustice.189 The Great Terror consumed Soviet society and overshadowed the links between the Russian and foreign Communists, contributing to numerous further divisions in the European parties. It profoundly affected the work of the Comintern, which found itself at the centre of multi-dimensional political conflicts. Dimitrov’s whole public and private persona was also caught in the vortex: his stance on the Purge reflected his character, political ambitions and bureaucratic limitations. As Head of the Comintern, Dimitrov’s rank equalled that of some members of the Soviet Politburo and government. That he was a trusted member of the Soviet establishment was proved by his election as a deputy to the Supreme Council of the USSR, the Soviet Parliament, in December 1937. 190 He was admitted to Stalin’s inner circle on numerous occasions, although he was not particularly close to anyone in it. Nonetheless, he was frequently privy to sensitive information, some of it gathered through special channels, especially with regard to developments abroad and to Soviet foreign policy.191

4 WAR, NOT REVOLUTION, 1939–44

After the Great Terror abated Dimitrov’s position in the upper reaches of the Communist nomenclatura stabilised. Even though it had raged dangerously close at times, Dimitrov survived the all-consuming internal turmoil and preserved his high post with hardly any direct personal damage. He had certainly proven himself a loyal agent of the regime who could be trusted with navigating the Communist movement in the increasingly tense European situation. And yet, as war loomed nearer and Soviet defence assumed greater priority than ever, the Comintern’s political relevance began to decline, and accordingly, Dimitrov’s profile was lowered with it.

* * * The start of 1939 was less than auspicious for Dimitrov. New Year’s Eve was spent alone at home with his wife and three-year-old son, something he noted down as apparently exceptional, as he was fond of entertaining friends and colleagues. Unlike earlier years, there was no major Soviet press publication dedicated to his work and ideas. The bleakness was aggravated by frequent and prolonged spells of mainly flu-like symptoms. By the middle of March 1939, a medical council concluded that he had ‘serious functional deficiencies of the nervous system and metabolism’ coupled with severe exhaustion.1 Two months’ complete rest were emphatically recommended, but Dimitrov had no intention of leaving Moscow at what looked like a critical moment. Though he was feeling ‘completely shattered’, he insisted on following the proceedings of the VKP(B) congress during the day and catching up on the affairs of the Comintern in the evenings. Shortly afterwards, a round of internal rivalry erupted at the Secretariat of the ECCI, when on 23 March Manuilsky unexpectedly criticised the political stance of Kuusinen in an article for the 20 th anniversary of the Comintern. Dimitrov was bemused by this attempt at the political discrediting of Kuusinen, and found it difficult to arbitrate between two of his closest colleagues. Nonetheless, it was Manuilsky in whom Dimitrov confided his ‘fears’, following both Pravda’s and Izvestiya’s omission of his name on a couple of honorary committees for various celebrations. It is certainly indicative of the stress under which Dimitrov laboured that one of the events in question was a meeting of Moscow musicians.2 In the end, Dimitrov calmed down after a talk with Stalin, who pointed out that Manuilsky had been a Trotskyite. More recently, Manuilsky had published an article in Pravda full of provocations: it had eulogised Stalin and emphasised his role in the world Communist movement, thus causing him serious embarrassment as he was in the middle of Soviet negotiations with Britain. Foreign policy considerations drove

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Stalin to forbid the inclusion of his name alongside those of Marx and Lenin in the Comintern’s annual First of May appeal. At the same time, Stalin seemingly showed trust in Dimitrov, warning him not to allow himself to be ‘saddled’ by the ‘intriguing and sweet-talking’ Manuilsky.3 For what it was worth in Stalin’s Moscow, Dimitrov soon received further momentary proof that he was still well-regarded: an article of his, ‘The Country of Socialism and the Struggle of the International Proletariat’, appeared in Pravda. It was dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Day of International Workers’ Solidarity, and called for the study of Marxism as a vital weapon against fascism, while simultaneously extolling the achievements of the USSR.4 For the traditional First of May parade he was once again on top of Lenin’s mausoleum, looking benevolently on the marching columns, some of whom even carried his portrait and chanted his name. He only hinted enigmatically at the recent turbulence in his work when entering in his diary that ‘all rumours’ about him ‘had been put to rest’. Several days later he did not fail to appear at official receptions, first for the International Day of Labour and then in honour of the graduates of the Military Academy. Chronically ill, the 57-year-old Dimitrov eventually collapsed at work, and had to succumb to prolonged treatment at the Boroviha sanatorium, followed by retreat to the ECCI holiday house in Kuntsevo and rest in his own villa in Meshcherino, just outside Moscow.5 Still more perturbing were the questions about the continuing relevance to the Comintern of the policy of the popular front implicitly posed by the fact that the European status quo was fast disintegrating in the aftermath of the Munich agreement, the German invasion of Czechoslovakia and the ensuing pressure on Poland. Crucially, the Spanish Republic, one of the beacons of the popular front, was defeated in early March 1939. This could have repercussions for the strategy as a whole, the more so as the Popular Front in France had crumbled and lost power the previous year. Unquestioningly, the Comintern was called to guide its members through this tense and volatile international labyrinth. In theory, the Comintern still upheld the principles of broad anti-fascist struggle. But as this had not brought perceptible improvement in Soviet relations with the Western powers, and ‘collective security’ had not been achieved, it became difficult to discern any continued support by the Soviet government for the popular-front policy. In any event, the top Comintern executive was not closely or directly involved in the making of Stalin’s foreign policy. Even as he confirmed his confidence in Dimitrov, Stalin was less than unequivocal on the issue of the continued validity of the popular front. In April 1939, the French Communists asked the Comintern for advice on their stance towards the cabinet of Édouard Daladier, who had succeeded Léon Blum a year earlier. Their opposition so far had been restrained, for fear of precipitating a more extreme right-wing reaction, but they had begun to wonder whether the time had not arrived for a stronger and more open attack. Stalin abstained from any comment on this dilemma, and halfjokingly reminded Dimitrov that the latter was the ‘Chairman’ of the Comintern and should decide on his own. As a result Dimitrov recommended a strategy of a broad government of national defence.6 This reflected his own analysis, and his preferred solution to the critical situation in the context of the popular-front idea. Yet the

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incident could be seen as indicative of something else – by refusing to commit to a particular opinion at this moment, Stalin demonstrated not so much support for Dimitrov as detachment from the Comintern’s official line. Some two months later Dimitrov also noted that the Comintern had been told to decide on its own ‘about the valuables [sic] of the Spanish government’: this is unclear, as by then the Republic’s gold reserves, already transferred to Moscow in 1936, had long been exhausted. After their defeat, the Spanish Communists were particularly demanding of Dimitrov’s attention, and numerous consultations were carried out with Togliatti, Marty and Días. At the end of May, Togliatti submitted a long report on the lessons of the Spanish Civil War, and a political school for Spanish refugees was organised at the Comintern.7 Dimitrov was updated on the sessions of the Soviet Central Committee. In the summer of 1939 this allowed him a glimpse into the course of foreign relations, even though he mainly received information on faits accomplis. At the end of May he obtained notes on Molotov’s report to the CC about the negotiations with Britain and France – after these had already failed. Similarly, he had little inkling of the Soviet contacts with Nazi Germany. If he detested the rapprochement with the regime that had plotted his death, the news of Ribbentrop’s imminent visit appears to have elicited no personal reaction. On the very eve of the conclusion of the agreement with Germany, the ECCI Secretariat urgently convened a meeting to prepare instructions to the parties. At best these sounded confused and evasive, stating for instance that ‘the possible conclusion of a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany did not exclude the opportunity and necessity for agreements between Britain, France and the USSR for common resistance to an aggressor’. Notably, the document branded all major international powers as aggressive, and did not miss the opportunity of castigating the Social Democrats as anti-Soviet reactionaries. The USSR in contrast was called a friend of the Spanish Republic, defender of the Czechoslovak people and helper of the small Baltic nations.8 Days later, on 27 August, Dimitrov and Manuilsky forwarded Stalin and Molotov a summary of the reaction of various Communist parties to the Pact. The Comintern leaders reported that at their incentive a number of Central Committees had taken the ‘appropriate’ approach to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, starting press and propaganda campaigns in support of this ‘contribution to the cause of peace’ and of the ‘lesson Stalin taught’ the warmongers. 9 In yet another discussion about the tactics of the Communist parties, on 1 September 1939, Dimitrov expressed dissatisfaction with the French Communists’ unconditional support for the Daladier–Bonnet government, which had previously strengthened the hand of fascist Germany.10 This contradicted both his previous advice and his support for the latest Soviet diplomatic steps. When shortly afterwards, he was once again caught unawares by the German–Russian division of Poland, he simply reiterated Molotov’s justification of the disappearance of ‘the artificial creation of Versailles’.11 Dimitrov’s writings from this period are narrative and oblique. It is difficult to judge whether he really comprehended the complex dynamic of Stalin’s foreign policy on the brink of war, or just diligently followed prescriptions from above. During the five years that he had spent in relative proximity to Stalin, he had undoubtedly learnt a

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great deal about the latter’s ways of making policy. But astute as Dimitrov was, anticipating the twists of direction or seeing a detailed picture was almost impossible, since he received information on a strictly ‘need-to-know’ basis. In August and September 1939 Dimitrov saw that Soviet foreign policy was elastic. In tune with the main guidelines approved by Stalin, Dimitrov ventured in talk with his Comintern colleagues that the pact with Germany should not stand in the way of continuing resistance to fascist aggression. It was possible to follow such a line in general anti-war propaganda, but the more thorny issue was that of specific Communist response to initiatives for national defence directed against Germany, the new Soviet ally. This was most imminently relevant in the French case, where the Communists urgently needed to formulate a position. Dimitrov still believed that they should support the incumbent government, and prioritise resistance to the fascist aggression. Even so, the Communists should not shrink from propagating the idea that the government was not representative and bore responsibility for the Munich accords, which were ultimately hostile to the Soviets, who had been excluded from them.12 As Stalin was too busy to sanction Dimitrov’s proposals – and despite the carte blanche given in April – on 5 September Dimitrov made an official approach to the Secretariat of the CC of the VKP(B), admitting that the ECCI was having extreme difficulty in formulating the Theses on the War and the Political Tasks of the Communist Parties. In the fast-developing situation Dimitrov was evidently reluctant to commit any ideas on paper without advance knowledge of Stalin’s thinking. He was eventually granted a meeting on 7 September where Stalin, in the presence of Molotov and Zhdanov, essentially declared against the continuation of the policy of cooperation. The Soviet leader wanted the Communists to oppose their own governments and simultaneously to condemn the war. Stalin’s fundamental argument was that the start of the war had rendered the difference between ‘ordinary capitalist’ and ‘fascist states’ immaterial. If differentiating between the two varieties of imperialist capitalism had been justified before the war, it was no longer the case. Therefore the Communists should aim to demolish the whole capitalist system. Stalin explained that in opposition, the Communists could encourage the bourgeois parties to destroy each other; while in parallel Germany and other Western European states would enfeeble each other in the war. With typical studied naiveté, he asked what was wrong with ‘extending the Socialist system to new territory and population as a result of the destruction of fascist Poland’.13 With this perspective in mind, the ECCI renewed its efforts to formulate guidelines – and produced a standard harangue on the imperialist powers’ warmongering. The brunt of the document, dated 26 September, was targeted against the British, who were stereotypically charged with inciting the war in their search for wider colonial domination. However, Britain was also presented as aiming to use Germany for war against the Soviets, and the French were found to be equally guilty. Their ally Poland could not be supported as it had become ‘the prison of nations’. Moreover, Germany, Italy and Japan were also exposed as imperialist, albeit in milder tones. But most strikingly, in terms resonating with the rhetoric of a decade earlier, the Comintern claimed it was time to indict the Social Democratic parties for treason. The

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finale was a call for the Communist parties to stay loyal to the cause of MarxismLeninism-Stalinism and unite under the banner of the Comintern.14 Dimitrov clearly understood that his role at the helm of the Comintern required him to convey the Soviet position to the constituent sections and to rationalise the changes in it. He faced a two-fold predicament: on the one hand, he was not sufficiently conversant with the details of the latest Soviet plans, so, he naturally fell back on ideology and recycled some of Stalin’s advice from the previous April. This led to relatively strong wording with regard to the Soviets’ new partner, Germany, which in turn was most likely why the theses were never formally approved by Stalin. On the other hand, Dimitrov was now being asked to validate a policy which substantially undermined the notion of a popular front, with which he was directly and personally associated. Four years after his inspired proclamation of the popular-front policy, Stalin was beginning to discard it, as a temporary measure which in the new circumstances no longer served Soviet interests. If the Seventh Congress of the Comintern was the apogee of Dimitrov’s international political career, the demise of its main slogan marked the beginning of his political decline. In addition, a number of Communist parties interpreted the Comintern’s directives in such a way as to justify their own analysis of the situation. The French, Belgian and British parties all insisted that they should fight on two fronts – internally against their capitalist-imperialist governments but also against the foreign enemies of their nations. This was why Dimitrov had to rework the theses in order to reinforce Stalin’s analysis; it was reflected in a resolution of the ECCI Presidium, insisting that the Communist parties should finally rectify their views and cease calling the war ‘antifascist’ when it was purely ‘imperialist’. Even though the theses proved unsatisfactory, Dimitrov embarked on transforming them into an article for the Comintern’s eponymous journal. This would still offer the expected guidance for the Communist movement in a complex situation, but would be less prescriptive. Yet in view of the momentous developments on which he would be commenting, Dimitrov felt unable to proceed without explicit clearance from his superiors. On 17 October he approached Stalin for the fourth time in less than six months, writing that ‘even though the Communist parties had corrected their attitude towards the war’ they still showed ‘some confusion as to the reasons and the nature of the war’. This above all summarised Dimitrov’s own perplexity on how to adjust the Comintern’s tactics to the controversial Soviet policy. Bearing in mind Dimitrov’s customary proficiency in writing, it is all the more clear that his difficulties were of a conceptual nature. The matter became even more humiliating when the initial draft of Dimitrov’s paper was returned, with a demand for improvement, by Stalin, Molotov and Zhdanov. Adding insult to injury, Zhdanov caustically remarked on the unsatisfactory content of the work, ‘in such a long time comrade Stalin would have written a whole book’. On 25 October Stalin summoned Dimitrov to the Kremlin – ironically only to tell him that there was no need to rush with the editing of the text. He agreed to most of the points proposed by Dimitrov, but stressed that it was vital to mobilise the masses and urge them to abandon their Social Democrat leaders. Appropriate slogans should be constructed – Stalin himself suggested variations along the lines of ‘Stop the war

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and the bloodshed!’, as if oblivious to the fact that the Soviet invasion of Poland was under way. At the same time, he advised that the Communists should abstain from claims that peace would be achieved only by the destruction of capital, as this would only help appeasers such as Chamberlain.15 For three more days Dimitrov toiled over his task; the final revision of ‘The War and the Working Class in Capitalist Countries’ was completed at dawn on the fourth day. Stalin sanctioned its publication and it was submitted to Communist International and Bolshevik on 31 October, two months after the start of the war. Dimitrov had reason to be pleased with the outcome: his work was immediately hailed as programmatic. As well as voicing approval for all Soviet agreements with Germany and for the Red Army’s entry into Poland, Dimitrov reflected the spirit of the preceding discussions by again exposing the Western democracies. Whereas the British and French governments were presented as the main forces for war – they aimed to redistribute the world’s markets – by contrast the Soviet Union and Germany were devoid of any guilt. At the domestic level, the Social Democrats were revealed to have abused the popular front in order to service the capitalists’ interests, and so the Communists were directed away from union with them. Once again, a united front ‘from below’ should be built, so that the workers could defend their own interests. Altogether, the terminology of anti-fascism and parliamentary democracy disappeared from the Comintern’s theoretical arsenal. If additional proof that Dimitrov’s views were representative of the Soviet government was needed, Molotov’s speech on 31 October 1939 at the Supreme Soviet provided it. As if echoing ideas from Dimitrov’s article, the Commissar for Foreign Affairs lashed out at Britain and France for seeking to preserve their world domination through war – in stark contrast to ‘Germany’s peace proposal’. Molotov even proclaimed his doubts that Hitler’s ideology could be destroyed by war: this allowed him to argue that the British and French protestations of fighting fascism were merely obscuring the real causes of the conflict. On 7 November, Stalin too spoke in what seemed conciliatory terms, saying it was possible for Germany to take an anti-capitalist turn.16 Nevertheless, the Comintern members remained beset by grave confusion as to how to react to the Nazi–Bolshevik alliance. It seriously interrupted Communist activity, as it revealed a profound discrepancy between Soviet words and deeds, between Soviet strategic concerns and the interests of individual Communist parties. One case vividly illustrated the hollowness of the new Comintern approach: the KPD, which had been decimated by Hitler, was told to concentrate its foreign policy against the British and French imperialists. At home it should fight predominantly the Social Democrats, the Catholic Centre and business circles, all of whom profiteered from war in both financial and political terms. German Communists like Walter Ulbricht were hardly more realistic – he had seriously opined that it was an opportune moment to fight for a ‘people’s republic’.17 In Bulgaria, the Communist party was nearly paralysed by being required to correct an erstwhile course that had pivoted around the need to prevent German economic penetration. The lonely voices that dared question the integrity of the new policy were denounced by Dimitrov as simply ‘anti-Soviet’. And if

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the Comintern sections were not stunned enough, he also urged them to campaign in favour of a new Soviet-engineered Communist government of Finland – a policy opposed even by sections of the Communist Party of Finland.18 Once he comprehended what it involved, Dimitrov showed no hesitation over the new direction, and threw himself into the work of implementing it. The final months of 1939 and the first half of 1940 were spent in meticulously going through the affairs of individual Communist parties and preparing detailed instructions for them, in line with the new international realities as perceived from Moscow. As usual, the main European parties received the bulk of the attention, but those of the Scandinavian and Baltic countries were now also monitored extremely closely in view of the recentlyredrawn western borders of the USSR, and Soviet entanglement in the ‘winter war’ with Finland. Special consideration was extended to the parties of Britain’s overseas territories, from Canada to New Zealand, which were all urged to resist and eventually destroy British imperialism. Conspicuously, the recommendations to the Communist party of India called for the formation of ‘a progressive national alliance, a common national front . . . against British imperialism’.19 This was at the time a unique point, one of the first instances of insistence on the rallying of political forces on a patriotic basis: it became the Comintern’s signature tune later in the war, albeit in a radically changed context. One of the most serious challenges for Dimitrov in this period was his dealing with the ‘Chinese question’, which became pressing during Chou En-lai’s visit to Moscow in January 1940. Since the summer of 1939 Dimitrov had been forwarding information to the Kremlin on the growing rifts between the Communists and Nationalists in China. Now, he set up a working commission in the Comintern to review the situation, with input from the Chinese delegation, and to draw up guidance. The main findings and conclusions were as always sent to Stalin, with the standard request for advice. But despite additional reminders, on 25 February 1940 Stalin telephoned to say he had neither read the materials nor could receive the Chinese personally. He told Dimitrov flatly to ‘decide on your own’. This was hardly evidence of Stalin’s willingness to delegate, or of the Comintern’s autonomy in certain instances, but a signal that there were no new special considerations in the Chinese case. Indeed, Dimitrov now expressed the view that developments in China did not merit a change to the overall policy, even though the Communist leadership there had long been insisting on the necessity of a break with its Nationalist allies. Dimitrov exerted all his authority to convince the CCP that they should continue to manoeuvre and bargain in order to preserve the ‘united front’ of the two main political forces in China. 20 As this was different from the current tactics of the majority of Communist parties, it can be seen as reflecting Dimitrov’s personal predilections. But then, only a month earlier Dimitrov had heard Stalin explain that it was foolish to assume that world revolution would be a single event: it would undoubtedly occur at a different moment and in a different manner in each country.21 While the domestic conflict in China was brewing relatively slowly, events in Europe continued apace. In April there was a small storm over an open letter from Arvo Tuominen, the Finnish Communist leader, to Dimitrov, accusing the Comintern

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leaders of being obedient servants to the Soviet government even in the face of a policy which expressly contradicted the interests of the international proletariat. After Hitler’s western offensive in the spring of 1940, Dimitrov’s attention was understandably fixed on the invasion of France, whose fate compelled the Comintern to issue a declaration. On 23 May, Thorez and Marty wrote a document entitled ‘We Accuse’, recalling Zola’s famous open letter on the Dreyfus affair. Their fire was directed at the French bourgeoisie, with most of France’s inter-war foreign policy being presented as a road to war. Daladier, Bonnet and frequently Blum were named as the main engineers of this disastrous course, but there was no specific attention to Germany except for a feeble mention of German imperialism, itself encouraged by the French.22 In a matching document drawn up by Wilhelm Pieck and Wilhelm Florin, the exiled German Communist leaders appealed to their compatriots to demand a peace without annexations and reparations, but also the confiscation of war profits and the nationalisation of industry and the banks. Once again, Nazism was not even mentioned in the document.23 With the fall of Paris, another declaration was cobbled together stressing the complete bankruptcy of the French bourgeoisie, and of the Radical and Socialist politicians who had betrayed the Popular Front. The anti-Soviet focus of French governments was presented as the main reason for the appeasement of imperialist Germany. The Communists had been proved right in their claims that to prevent war it was necessary to destroy capitalism. But the declaration did not agitate for a Communist policy: in recognition of the extreme situation it called for the restoration of broad democratic and trade-union liberties. It addressed all workers, including those affiliated to the Socialists and Radicals, with ‘a brotherly appeal to unite forces in a common front for struggle’.24 This position was gradually developed through several more documents on the events in France, until on 22 June the Comintern instructed the PCF to avoid any actions which might give the impression they were collaborating with the occupiers. This was awkward for Moscow, and Stalin on several occasions watered down some of the stronger phrases. Nevertheless, this marked the start of a new attitude to Germany, which now controlled all continental Europe. Soon, the Communists proclaimed the need for a return to democracy and then their readiness to cooperate in the name of national sovereignty, finally adopting a distinct if still faint anti-German stance. Gradually, these new elements in Soviet propaganda were strengthened; the Italian party announced on 28 June 1940 that it too would aim for a government of workers and peasants to put an end to capitalist exploitation and imperialist war, while also remaining ready to cooperate with all who recognised the broader programme.25 From the official Comintern documents it is evident that the changes in the French documents were the result of work by the French Communists themselves. It was Thorez, André Marty, Arthur Ramette and Raymond Guillot who had drafted and redrafted the declarations forwarded to Stalin on 10 and 16 June. This was explicitly pointed out in Dimitrov’s accompanying letter, giving the impression that he was more interested in securing Stalin’s approval and serving as an intermediary to him than in committing himself personally.

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To stay tuned into the policy of Soviet leadership, it was indispensable for Dimitrov to be physically close to Stalin. As before, he measured his status by the invitations he received to join the members of Stalin’s inner circle on various formal or social occasions. In the first months of the war, Dimitrov was never missing from Stalin’s half-work-half-play gatherings. On 7 November 1940, he was at the parade, where his portrait also appeared, and afterwards attended a small lunch party with Stalin. On 21 December, a dinner for veterans of the revolution took place in honour of Stalin’s 60th birthday: Dimitrov meticulously recorded the names of those present, exclaiming that Molotov’s wife was missing. With 23 toasts proposed, the ‘unforgettable night’ continued until eight o’clock the following morning. A month later Dimitrov was once again at Stalin’s side, this time at a performance at the Bol’shoy Theatre which turned into a meeting on events in Finland, from where urgent bad news had just arrived. It was here that Stalin explained that one of the reasons for the trouble in Finland was that the Red Army had killed 60,000 instead of 150,000 people. Dimitrov was also invited to Molotov’s 50th birthday on 9 March, and at the end of the month took part in the plenum of the CC of VKP(B) and also attended the session of the Supreme Soviet.26 Dimitrov’s work and social life were closely intertwined. He entertained at his flat in the so-called Government House in Moscow, to which in the evenings he often invited visiting foreign Communists, his closest Comintern associates and relatives. The discussions occupying the Comintern continued after dinner with his guests. When the war with Finland was at the top of the agenda and ‘Scandinavian events’ were examined daily, he invited Kuusinen and his wife to his flat twice in four days.27 Dimitrov was an amiable host who frequently treated his guests to home cinema into the small hours of the night: here he was emulating Stalin, who mixed drinking and policy-making. When he was ill, Dimitrov kept his appointments from his home office. Occasionally, he would have whole foreign delegations or working committees of the ECCI meeting at his country house during the weekend. Comintern functionaries like Dolores Ibárruri, Palmiro Togliatti and Maurice Thorez were regarded as friends, and he often recorded spending hours in ‘intimate atmosphere’ with their whole families. Stella Blagoeva and her sister Natasha were trusted friends of Dimitrov, and two of the few Bulgarians whom he was always happy to see. In contrast, Vassil Kolarov, once his close partner, had drifted apart. Rosa’s closest friend was Zinaida Ordjonikidze, the widow of Sergo. Dimitrov had become very much a family man by the late 1930s: the birth of his son in April 1936 had clearly unlocked a mellower aspect of his character. He had also always insisted on good terms with his extended family: his sister Elena with her husband and children often joined the Dimitrovs for a night in or a day out. He certainly helped with the transfer to the Soviet Union of his wife’s brother who arrived only a month after Dimitrov mentioned that Rosa was sick with worry about her relatives in Czechoslovakia and Austria. However, Dimitrov kept the securing of such favours to the bare minimum, so that he did not exhaust his ‘credit’ of influence with the Soviet special services, who were undoubtedly involved.

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Although Dimitrov’s diary for the first half of 1940 does not even mention his health, about which he tended to obsess, his condition took a turn for the worse in the summer. The diary has a gap of a full four months, between mid-May and midSeptember, and the first entries on its resumption relate to a series of medical tests at Boroviha, after which Dimitrov was sent to the Sochi resort in the Crimea. He travelled in a special train compartment accompanied by a doctor, a massage therapist and 26 ‘associates’, as well as a teacher and a nanny for the children, including his foster-child, eight-year-old Fang, the daughter of Wang Ming. Dimitrov was accommodated in a detached villa complete with an orchard and perfect views over the sea. A host of specially-allocated medical professionals began looking after him, overseeing a routine of sea air, special baths of herbs and minerals, and a strict diet. The aim was to reduce his high blood pressure and contain the advance of diabetes. After five weeks, Dimitrov still complained of prolonged and painful side-effects, and his brain ‘practically refused to work’ so that he was unable to write the shortest letter.28 Meanwhile, Manuilsky had been left in charge at the Secretariat of the Comintern, and regularly informed him of major developments there. After the prescribed medical course was completed, Dimitrov’s health continued to cause problems. A fortnight after his return to Moscow, on 14 November, he felt extremely disappointed that after such a long treatment he was ‘so unwell’. The relapse might have been precipitated by his all-too-sudden plunge back into the Moscow social circuit, with its late nights and copious drinking. The first prominent event on his calendar was the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, which was marked over three days by a succession of receptions, dinners and commemorative meetings. These were all described in Dimitrov’s diary, with Stalin’s words scrupulously recorded. The physical strain was coupled with nervous stress. Amidst a discussion of political and military matters, Stalin dropped a rather sinister warning: nobody except himself was learning from mistakes; nobody understood the lessons from the recent fighting in Finland and Europe. In effect, he offended those present by stating that many allegedly educated people were ‘real idiots’, and also warned, ‘I’m going to show you if I lose patience. You know how I can’.29 Dimitrov observed that Voroshilov had tears in his eyes. Soon Dimitrov had occasion to talk to Stalin on the issue of Bulgaria, on which German pressure was growing and which was therefore increasingly attracting Soviet attention. The Tripartite Pact between Germany, Italy and Japan had been concluded on 28 September, and two months later Hungary and Romania had also joined it, but Bulgaria had managed to abstain. Soviet interests in the Balkans were endangered, and as Molotov was preparing for a difficult meeting in Berlin, on 25 November 1940 he called Dimitrov in for consultations. The latter’s concern that Bulgaria should be prevented from further gravitating toward Germany was shared by Molotov, who also expressed dissatisfaction with Germany over Turkey and Hungary. Dimitrov used the opportunity to explain that the Comintern was carrying out a policy of attempting the demoralisation of German troops across Europe, and to make sure that that this would not hinder Soviet policy. Molotov lauded it as a true Marxist approach – as long as it was done silently.

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Dimitrov had barely returned to the Comintern from Molotov’s office when he was summoned to Stalin’s. This is when he was told of a package of Soviet proposals concurrently put to Bulgaria. These centred on a pact of mutual assistance, to which the Soviets were prepared to add supplies of foodstuffs and raw materials, such as wheat and cotton. Crucially, the USSR was seeking naval bases on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, offering in return support for a strategic change of the frontier between Bulgaria and Turkey along the Enos–Midia line. Explaining the initiative, Stalin pointed out to Dimitrov that the Soviet Union and Bulgaria had similar interests, as the security of both involved the Black Sea; the Soviet proposals aimed to oust Turkey from Europe. Stalin added that the Bulgarian Ambassador Ivan Stamenov had misunderstood this to be an offer of a Soviet guarantee rather than a mutual nonaggression and assistance pact. Most interestingly, Stalin declared that if a Bulgarian– Soviet agreement was reached, he would not oppose Bulgaria’s entry into the Tripartite Pact – and might even join it himself.30 It is evident that Molotov and Stalin had not called Dimitrov to hear his views on relations with Bulgaria. Nor was this some sort of courtesy meeting to update him on developments in which he had an obvious vested interest. The Bulgarian government had been sounded out through its envoy in Moscow a whole week earlier, and there is no indication that Dimitrov was privy to this. Moreover, at the time of Dimitrov’s two meetings with the Soviet leaders, Arkady Sobolev, the Secretary-General of the Soviet Foreign Ministry, had already delivered his official note in Sofia. What Stalin now wanted from Dimitrov was ‘to make our proposal widely known to the Bulgarian public’. Although he did not explicitly say so, Stalin was hoping to pressure not only the Bulgarian Government – from which the initial responses had been negative – but also Turkey, for whose affiliation Germany and Russia were already competing. The only instrument Dimitrov had for influencing the Bulgarian public was the Communist party – as Stalin was well aware. The whole episode unambiguously put in perspective the role of Dimitrov as chief of the Third International: his function was clearly revealed to be that of managing the Communist movement on behalf of the Soviet government, and in tune with the current domestic or foreign priorities of the VKP(B). But Dimitrov’s position was made extremely difficult by the fact that at this moment he had been left in the dark, unaware of Stalin’s deliberations and decisions until they were finalised. As a result, Dimitrov had to engage in speedy and sometimes embarrassing manoeuvres. The ensuing ‘Sobolev action’ was a case in point. Dimitrov immediately telegraphed the Bulgarian Communists, who had adopted the official name of the ‘Bulgarian Workers’ Party’ (BRP), to which the designation ‘Communists’ was often appended. Outlining the Soviet offer, he instructed them to organise ‘a most energetic campaign’, including activity by ‘our deputies’, so that the Soviet note became known and supported by the masses. The following day he sent Stalin a brief missive reporting on his actions. How shocked he must have been, then, when two days later Molotov telephoned to say curtly that: ‘Our people in Sofia have been distributing leaflets on the occasion of the Soviet proposal to Bulgaria. Idiots!’ Molotov was probably most displeased with fact that the Soviet military demands had become publicly known.31 Without a quibble, Dimitrov instantaneously sent

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instructions that ‘such harmful idiocy’ should be stopped at once.32 The often loquacious journal-keeper did not write another word on the matter. However, the sequel is revealed in the correspondence between Dimitrov and the Bulgarian CC. The Bulgarians were ‘overjoyed’ with Dimitrov’s initial telegram and pledged to use all efforts and means to acquaint the most remote village with the Soviet offer. On 28 November they reported on their initiatives, explicitly noting that leaflets were printed and that party members were overwhelmed with enthusiasm. Furthermore, they mentioned that some party circles were wondering why the Soviet Union would need to join the Tripartite Pact, and that activists were trying to clarify the matter. This message had been received by Dimitrov by the time he forwarded the new instructions, but rather than calling the party’s actions ‘idiocy’ he explained that the leaflets were a big mistake which should end. All activity should be verbal, and care should be taken not to commit the party to anything specific. Traicho Kostov, one of the CC members, responded the following day by complaining that he had not been warned to keep to non-written agitation, and demanded more precision in future. It took Dimitrov five days to compose a report to Molotov. On 3 December, clearly making an effort to distance himself from the Bulgarian CC, he informed the Soviet foreign minister that he had reprimanded ‘the Bulgarian comrades’ for ‘their gravest error’. With even more astonishing brazenness, he explained that the Bulgarian leaders had replied ‘admitting their own mistake’ and explaining that they had thought they were ‘doing good’ but now understood they had fouled their own nest.33 Dimitrov could never have criticised the Soviet leadership for not providing sufficiently explicit instructions – but neither was he himself prepared to accept responsibility. His manipulative behaviour showed his readiness to pass liability down the line to the people on the spot; and if they showed the courage to complain, the Soviet leaders were unlikely to hear of it, as he controlled the correspondence. In any case, the Bulgarian comrades too were left unaware of the words and positions Dimitrov had attributed to them. Inside Bulgaria, the unpleasant faux pas seemed secondary to the overwhelming feeling among the Communist activists that the party had regained the initiative. Over the preceding year, they had been paralysed by the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. In its aftermath, the FB had urged the tactic of a united ‘people’s front from below’, involving all the workers, craftsmen and peasants, plus the working intelligentsia. The policy was developed into the ‘independent mobilisation of the masses’ against the treasonous leaders and against ‘the military-monarchic capitalist dictatorship’.34 As late as September–October 1940, the Bulgarian CC had been told that depicting the German danger as primary was incorrect, and the party should not be so anti-German as to cause difficulties for Soviet diplomacy.35 In the wake of ‘the Sobolev action’ the Communists could return to their more natural stance of opposition to ‘the bourgeoisie, the government and the fascist elements’.36 The party was reoriented to continue campaigning in favour of a pact with the Soviet Union, justifying this not on a class basis but as in the national interest. The Bulgarian Communists were warned against any actions that might suggest that the proposed pact would endanger the ‘bourgeois order’. Even after the tensions between

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Russia and Germany had been fully revealed by Molotov’s visit to Berlin at the end of November 1940, Dimitrov continued to insist that a Bulgarian–Soviet agreement would not be an act hostile to Germany: indeed, should such an agreement be reached, the Soviet Union would not oppose Bulgaria’s joining the Tripartite Pact.37 It was this last statement which once again confused the Bulgarian Communists. Soon the FB was reprimanding them for underestimating the threat from British imperialism as well as overestimating the probability of a pro-German coup in Bulgaria itself. As a result, there was no possibility of contemplating a united front with the Anglophile elements among the bourgeois parties. But the most revealing statement was that ‘Soviet policy looks at the major interests of the Soviet people and the international proletariat, and could not be influenced by local and partial interests’.38 In the meantime, to reinforce the resolve of the internal leadership, to help with the reorganisation of the Communist party and possibly to carry out Soviet special operations, Anton Ivanov, one of Dimitrov’s most trusted émigré followers in Moscow, had been transferred to Bulgaria.39 Unwilling to risk further blunders, on 13 January 1941 Dimitrov wrote to Stalin asking for advice on the issue of the imminent deployment of German troops to Bulgaria. Dimitrov’s view was that the Communists could not stay silent, and should declare categorically against this breach of Bulgarian sovereignty, exposing the Bulgarian government and King. Hours later, at two in the morning, Stalin confirmed over the telephone his agreement to such a position, while also reminding Dimitrov that the BRP should avoid ‘provocative actions’. 40 This was passed on, with Dimitrov making sure he too warned against ‘unconsidered actions, provocations and armed clashes’.41 The final, almost farcical act of this altogether stressful experience for Dimitrov occurred on 30 January 1941, when his second-in-command at the Comintern, Manuilsky, reported him to Molotov for breaching confidentiality. Two days earlier, at a briefing session for Comintern instructors, Dimitrov had spoken of the Soviet proposals for a pact with Bulgaria. After Manuilsky had ‘quietly’ reminded him that this had never been publicised in the Soviet press, Dimitrov had sworn his listeners to secrecy. Nevertheless, Manuilsky could not allow the incident to pass, and hoped that Dimitrov would be advised on issues of confidentiality. 42 Luckily for Dimitrov, even then Stalin did not lose patience with him. The preoccupation with Bulgarian developments was temporary. Dimitrov continued to oversee the standing review of the Comintern parties in their national and regional context: all directives required his approval. In 1940, the annual appeal to all Communist parties on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution focused on the peaceful policy of the Soviet Union. The document claimed that the Soviets had saved the Baltic peoples from war, had rescued Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina from ‘capitalist enslavement’ and given them the chance of ‘self-determination’. It warned that the imperialist war was assuming global dimensions. As if the popular front had never been attempted, Stalin was quoted as saying that it would not be possible to destroy capitalism unless Social Democracy was finished off first. The only salvation

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was Socialism – but the struggle for it continued through the struggle against imperialist war.43 In late December 1940, the Czech Communists were alerted to the fact that even though national liberation remained the priority, there was a clear link between the social and national question.44 In early January 1941, commenting on ‘the British question’, the Presidium of the ECCI supported the demand for a ‘people’s government without representatives of imperialism and fascism’, approved the slogan for a ‘people’s peace’ and recommended that the CPGB carry out its own independent struggle involving unions and other mass organisations.45 Shortly afterwards, similar guidelines focusing on national issues were sent to the French, Spanish and Greek Communists. The Chinese situation was proving rather more intractable, as from November 1940 to February 1941 Mao Tse-dong repeatedly warned the ECCI that an attack by the Nationalists was imminent, and that the Communists should deliver a pre-emptive strike. Dimitrov coordinated and signed replies which insisted on the preservation of the united front, counselled caution and warned against civil war.46 He was of course only one of many Soviet agencies engaged with the Chinese Communists, and his role was in the main only supportive. In mid-February 1941, Dimitrov took part in the XVIII Conference of the VKP(B). He only had a consultative vote, but even so witnessed the reshuffle of the Soviet Central Committee which led to the ousting of the former Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov and the Minister of the Fishing Industry, Polina Zhemchuzhina. Although the latter’s speech impressed Dimitrov favourably with her humility and sobriety, he noted that only Molotov abstained from voting against her – ‘maybe because he is her husband, but this was hardly correct’. 47 Dimitrov’s readiness – years after the launch of the Great Terror, and after this particular defendant had once before been cleared – to take at face value accusations of anti-Soviet activities is striking. It is even more perplexing in that only two weeks earlier he had written to a member of the Soviet Politburo with a request that the arrests and sentences of a number of Bulgarian émigrés be reconsidered. Dimitrov claimed to have data which proved that these people ‘should not be considered capable of committing anti-Soviet and anti-party crimes; on the contrary, the majority of them are flawless Communists whose devotion was proven’. He also appealed on behalf of prisoners of other nationalities, claiming that his attitude stemmed from the need not only for ‘rehabilitation and salvation of innocently suffering people’ but also for a ‘return to useful work . . . against the class enemy’.48 This last phrase is the key to understanding Dimitrov’s interest in the arrested: the Comintern increasingly needed skilled and experienced cadres to work abroad or with foreign parties. Dimitrov was driven not by remorse or desire to correct injustice as much as by expediency and new institutional priorities. Of course, he had already had a chance to ascertain Stalin’s shifting attitudes, even towards former Trotskyite suspects. After Máttyás Rákosi was released from 16 years in a Hungarian prison, Stalin still voiced doubts about his past, but agreed that he could be employed by the Comintern. Dimitrov thanked Stalin for this ‘gift’ for the Comintern, but still set up a special committee including Marty, Ibárruri and

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Manuilsky to investigate Rákosi’s behaviour in 1925, when he had made confessions in police custody. On the other hand, Dimitrov personally showed Rákosi his file at the Comintern, providing him with the opportunity to explain and justify himself. At the end of February 1941, after all bureaucratic procedures had been complied with, Rákosi began working for the ECCI.49 Even as Dimitrov demonstrated sympathy and support, he was also influenced by the need for a senior Hungarian representative in Moscow, and possibly by a desire, in view of Manuilsky’s unreliability, to boost his own position. A sure sign of the ever-present political undercurrents at the Comintern was Dimitrov’s disappointment at being snubbed for the honorary presidium of the celebration of the International Day of Women at the Bol’shoy Theatre. Dimitrov was convinced that this was not accidental, nor reflective only of foreign-policy considerations, but due to some ‘hidden little game’. 50 His troubles continued when on 20 March Zhdanov voiced serious criticism of a statement concerning Social Democracy that the ECCI was working on. So far, the project was considered unsatisfactory, dwelling excessively on the past and showing a lack of understanding of the current disgraceful position of the working class, despite the failure of Social Democracy.51 Then on 26 March the Secretariat of the ECCI started an internal investigation into a number of ‘failures’ in its sections and in the ECCI itself – possibly in relation to the embezzlement discovered in the affiliated Communist Youth International.52 On 29 March Dimitrov had a friendly conversation with Molotov revolving around developments in Yugoslavia where a coup had just been attempted in the wake of the signing of the Tripartite Pact. Molotov’s view – quickly telegraphed to Belgrade – was that the Communists should build up their forces, recruit support from different sections of the population, but not get involved in noisy public demonstrations. In the increasingly tense international climate, the advice to keep a low profile increasingly applied to Communist parties across Europe. It was with this in mind that on 9 April, Dimitrov agreed in a conversation with the leading Soviet ideologue Andrey Zhdanov that the moment was inopportune for the publication of that year’s First of May appeal. It would have required an analysis of the current situation, but this would inevitably mean ‘revealing one’s cards, giving the enemy an opportunity for misuse’. Zhdanov also voiced the Soviet Union’s continuing desire to stay neutral in the imperialistic war: even if it disapproved of Germany’s expansion in the Balkans, the USSR would not envisage supporting Britain but would preserve its independent policy.53 Against the background of these generally unexceptional concerns, on 21 April 1941 Stalin unexpectedly raised the question of the whole raison d’être of the Comintern. Starting with the tease that ‘Dimitrov was losing his parties’ Stalin was quick to say that this was not ‘so bad’. In fact, the US Communist Party was the only one which by November 1940 had officially left the Comintern, so as not fall under the blows of restrictive domestic US legislation.54 In a rather assuaging tone Stalin added that affiliation to the Comintern often hindered the parties, as it was an excuse for their persecution. Stalin believed that the creation of the Third International had corresponded to the realities in Lenin’s time, but no longer reflected the current

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situation. Instead, the present moment called for national parties which should respond to national objectives and allow for national diversity: even their names should be more varied such as ‘workers’ party’ or ‘Marxist party’. Stalin himself admitted that from the perspective of the ECCI as an institution the situation was not pleasant, but refused to be guided by such narrow interests. In the following two weeks Dimitrov was the one who acquainted leading foreign and Russian functionaries including Thorez, Togliatti and Zhdanov with the proposition. They accepted the possible transformation of the Comintern into a centre for information, political and ideological help for Communist parties without objection, and in fact without much surprise. Possible suspension of the Comintern had already been mentioned at the time of the annexation of the Baltic states, and of course the ECCI itself had participated in the dissolution of the Polish Communist Party.55 The prospective banishment of his whole organisation was the most likely reason for Dimitrov’s absence from the tribune on 1 May 1941, for the first time since his arrival to the Soviet Union, though he was still invited to a reception at the Kremlin.56 Dimitrov had not waited to be prompted twice before he disclosed the plan to a wider group of Comintern staff at a routine meeting. He confidently elaborated on the need for ‘independent development and activity of the Communist parties’. However, having proven how easily he could deal away an international organisation that was an intrinsic part of Lenin’s legacy, Stalin paused. Meeting Dimitrov on 5 May, the Soviet leader did not even mention the Comintern. Instead, he held forth on the need to restructure and rearm the Red Army, and insisted that German statesmen had become ‘dizzy with success’. In Soviet usage, this term, first coined by Stalin in March 1930 to signal the easing of the forceful collectivisation of agriculture, meant that a policy had gone too far and required readjusting. It was interesting that now Stalin employed it in a non-Soviet context: very likely he was suggesting that Soviet reactions to further German advances should follow a new logic. Indeed, Stalin contended that Soviet policy was intrinsically peaceful, but should also prepare for war as there was no defence without offence. Stalin’s concluding words that day, as recorded by Dimitrov, were that the Soviet army ‘should get ready for war’.57 Such preoccupations were a convincing reason for relegating the question of the exact form and status of the Comintern to distinctly secondary importance. Indeed, on 12 May Dimitrov had another discussion with Zhdanov, who had in the meantime taken over the Propaganda Department of the CC of the VKP(B). The main theme which emerged was the need to stimulate the activities of the individual parties, which should show that proper nationalism did not contradict proletarian internationalism. In this respect, the dissolution of the Comintern was neither an empty demonstration nor the end of international workers’ solidarity. Above all, such a radical step was meant to make plain unequivocally that ‘suddenly, all anti-Comintern pacts will make no sense’, as the bourgeoisie’s biggest trump card – that the Communists were subjugated to a foreign centre, and therefore traitors – would be removed. 58 At this meeting too, Dimitrov never questioned the rationale for dissolution; he was eager to determine the best means of fulfilling a decision taken without his participation.

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It had been said over the previous month that the dissolution of the Comintern should not be conducted in a hurry, but carefully thought through. On the other hand, the preparations for war were bound to highlight the fact that in the international Communist parties the Soviets had ready-made and tested instruments of policy that could be used in a variety of open and covert ways. By the beginning of 1941, the Comintern under Dimitrov’s leadership was already following the line of demoralising occupying armies and agitating for the ‘defence of the enslaved peoples’. After Germany invaded Yugoslavia, even the Comintern’s own propaganda instructors were distinctly sceptical about the blanket explanation that all current hostilities were intrinsically imperialistic. Therefore, with Stalin’s express approval, Dimitrov adjusted the Comintern’s position in order to acknowledge ‘the just character of the war for states which had been subjected to aggression’. This recognised that Yugoslavia and Greece in particular were engaged in ‘national defence’, even if the war in general was still labelled ‘imperialistic’.59 Subsequent directives to Romania, Yugoslavia and France also increasingly underlined that the Communists must proclaim that they were aspiring to national liberation and independence by means of a ‘broad national front’. The pace at which Comintern thinking was evolving was well-illustrated by the differences between two documents issued in short succession. On 12 April 1941, the Austrian Communists were still urged to stand up to ‘all imperialist war, all national and social repression’ even if Germany was singled out as the main imperialist adversary. Yet only a fortnight later an address to the French Communists explicitly advocated the quest for national unity through a ‘national front for national independence’.60 When the ECCI privately addressed the Communist parties on the eve of 1 May, it argued that in ‘those imperialist countries which are participating in the war, a specific accusation should be raised against their own bourgeoisie’, but ‘in the occupied countries, the treachery of the bourgeoisie should be blamed for the loss of national sovereignty’. The opportunity was not missed to brand the Social Democrats as ‘betraying the interests of the working class and the people, and for active cooperation in the establishment of anti-national regimes’. All the same, the proclaimed goal was once again ‘a real national front for a quick end to war and a long-lasting peace settlement’.61 Thus, by early May the policy of Communist involvement in broad national coalitions had begun to crystallise – even if the process was not yet complete. In this Dimitrov can be seen as a moderator and transmitter of ideas rather than originator. Although the national front was a logical extension of the popular front to which Dimitrov’s name was lastingly appended, he cannot be truthfully credited with its initiation and advent in the spring of 1941. He failed to appreciate its potential even in his native country when earlier, on the eve of Bulgaria’s adherence to the Tripartite Pact, the left Agrarians suggested cooperation with the Communists. They approached Dimitrov directly through the Soviet legation in Sofia. But Dimitrov stuck to the view that since the Agrarian leader G.M. Dimitrov (known as ‘G.M.’) was an anglophile, and Britain was a prime instigator of the war, the Communists should not engage in such deals. Instead, they should not budge from their demand for nothing less than a

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Bulgarian agreement with the Soviet Union. 62 Soviet policy, closely followed by the Comintern, had not yet been reorientated, and so Dimitrov and the Bulgarian Communists missed the chance to be the harbingers of a new line. The uncertain status of the Comintern was not obvious to its member parties. They continued to use it as a channel of communication with the Kremlin, as well as a source of political guidance and material help. The trust foreign Communists placed in it was evident, when the Comintern received warnings from ‘all sides’ that Germany was getting ready for an attack on the Soviet Union. A telegram from Chou En-lai was deciphered on 21 June: without citing the source, it alerted the Soviets to imminent German aggression. Later that morning, when Dimitrov called Molotov asking for the latest instructions, he heard from the Foreign Minister that ‘a great game was going on’. In less than 24 hours, at seven o’clock on the morning of 22 June, Dimitrov was urgently summoned to the Kremlin and officially informed that the Soviet Union was at war. Stalin turned to him saying: ‘They have attacked us without posing any demands, without asking for negotiations, they have attacked us like bandits.’ Updated on the unfolding situation and the measures enforced by the Soviet Government, Dimitrov was struck by Stalin’s ‘amazing calmness, strength and confidence’. Surrounded by the leader’s busy office, Dimitrov agreed on the main aspects of Comintern work – the national parties should move in defence of the USSR, should not raise the issue of Socialist revolution but should agitate for the destruction of fascism. After years of continuous tactical alterations, which had disguised its overall inability to prescribe a meaningful strategy for the Communist parties, the Comintern’s role was put in stark perspective by the German invasion. It could now unambiguously gather Communists everywhere under the banner of relentless help for the Soviet Union in its just, patriotic war. To this end they should forge links with the widest range of political forces willing to stand up to the Axis powers. In other words, for the first time the Comintern embraced without reservation the idea of a broad national front, because this was unequivocally what the Soviets needed. Upon Dimitrov’s return from the Kremlin, on 22 June 1941, an emergency meeting at the Comintern headquarters declared the mobilisation of all its forces, and set up a ‘permanent leadership’ of Dimitrov, Manuilsky and Togliatti. Taking his cue from the preceding discussion with the Soviet government, Dimitrov made a brief speech which clearly formulated the new priorities of the Comintern. He emphasised that the situation was now radically changed and called for unprecedented measures. Nazi Germany, the erstwhile ally, was proclaimed as the principal enemy to be attacked by all Communists; all non-Communist political formations which had until the previous day been classified as pro-fascist and imperialist were now to be treated as potential partners. Even at this extreme moment, Dimitrov demonstrated aspects of the ingrained Communist mentality: he did not forget to warn his audience that the Germans relied on a fifth column, and so it was vital to remain ‘vigilant and signal any suspicious developments’.63 The first days after the German invasion of the Soviet Union – even though Stalin himself succumbed to shock and depression – saw hectic activity at the Comintern.

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Central staff was placed on war footing and vital services such as propaganda hastily reorganised. Dimitrov oversaw the dispatch of new advice to key European Communist parties. The British Communists were instructed to stop criticising Churchill, whose firm advocacy of fighting against Hitler was now advantageous to the Soviets. The Swedish party was criticised for suggesting neutrality for all combatant nations, including the Soviets. In turn, the French Communists were authorised to cooperate with Charles De Gaulle’s exiled Free French in London. Even the US Communists, whose nation was not at war, were guided towards a mass domestic antifascist front, coupled with support for efforts against Germany. A radio message to the CC of the Bulgarian party insisted that ‘all measures should be taken to alleviate the plight of the Soviet people’.64 Significantly, none of these directives stipulated that the Communists should explicitly claim the leading role in the reshaping of domestic politics. For the next two months the Secretariat of the ECCI sat in session almost continuously, reviewing all aspects of its work and monitoring most members as closely as the their circumstances allowed. By 7 July 1941, the Comintern had been reset to face the immediate future. In addition to the guidelines sent to individual member parties, it issued a general ‘Directive to the Communist Parties for Support of the Patriotic War of the USSR against Germany’. Having cleared the content with Molotov the previous day, Dimitrov highlighted the main principles of the new Communist approach: the establishment of ‘national fronts with strictly democratic objectives’, aiming in the first instance for national sovereignty. In parallel with this programmatic appeal, the Comintern tackled two other pressing matters: boosting its propaganda and practical help for Communist parties. Already in the first weeks of the fighting, while the Red Army was incurring huge losses, hundreds of leaflets in 11 languages were composed, printed and dispersed amongst the advancing Axis troops. Equally strenuous were the efforts to set up radio transmissions over enemy territory. By the end of June the Comintern was managing 27 daily transmissions in 13 languages; in about four months the number more than doubled. At Dimitrov’s initiative, the Comintern acquired its own broadcasting station, although the latter’s programming was entirely dependent on the Soviet government’s propaganda authorities. Shaken from their previous stupor, Communist leaders across Europe were finally clear as to their goals, although not always as to the methods they could employ. On 24 July after exploratory contacts with pro-Allied military officers, the Bulgarian CC resolved to organise an armed uprising, and was eager to know ‘how and what amount of help’ the Soviet Union would provide. Implicitly supporting the assumption of Soviet help, Dimitrov quickly passed the query on to Stalin. However, in two successive ciphers on 4 and 5 August, in equally neutral language, Dimitrov informed his fellow-countrymen that their slogan for ‘soviet Bulgaria’ was incorrect and should be replaced without delay by the more appropriate ‘national democratic republic’, for which the republican military in the country also stood. Moreover, ‘detailed discussion by the highest authority’ had concluded that any armed uprising in Bulgaria at this moment would be doomed. Such a step should be undertaken only after a much more favourable combination of domestic and external forces had appeared.65

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Similarly, at the end of July and again in early August 1941 the Yugoslav Communists asked for Soviet help for their Partisan guerrillas, who had already undertaken numerous successful actions. As previously, Dimitrov acquainted Stalin and Molotov with the request. It took the Soviet leadership a month to respond – in the negative. But apparently Dimitrov had more faith in the fighting spirit of the Yugoslavs than in that of the Bulgarians, as shortly afterwards he raised the issue with Major-General Panfilov, of Army Intelligence. As the latter expressed his belief that a plane-load of arms and munitions could be sent to the Balkans, Dimitrov was encouraged to alert Stalin for the second time in a fortnight that a national uprising was shaping up in Yugoslavia. The approach was again dismissed, but Dimitrov delayed informing the Yugoslavs for two weeks, suggesting in the end that they should use ‘all opportunities to acquire arms on the spot’. Their renewed appeals towards the end of the year went similarly unrewarded. 66 The Chinese Communists, who had also asked for Soviet munitions and materiel, initially fared better as they were allocated funding of some US$1 million in early July. However, a further demand met with a non-committal answer from Stalin, passed on by Dimitrov.67 Dimitrov derived more satisfaction from another key wartime activity in which he was immersed, namely the repatriation of Communist émigrés. These were charged with boosting local political and armed resistance, so their capability and loyalty had to be beyond doubt. For their selection and instruction Dimitrov worked closely with the Soviet party and government, but above all with the NKVD. By 7 July 1941, Dimitrov had signed up 150 foreign Communists for special operations in the enemy’s rear, and continued the vetting of more prospective returnees. The acute need for skilled cadres also led to a search among the ranks of former and serving political prisoners, and this was the principal reason for Dimitrov’s increasingly frequent requests to the NKVD and the prosecutor’s office for the release and rehabilitation of numerous Communists repressed during the Great Terror. Dimitrov insisted on personally meeting and instructing practically all operatives who were dispatched into German-occupied or Axis-allied territory. He saw this as one of his central duties throughout the war. Amongst the first émigrés gathered in an improvised international battalion were about 100 Bulgarians, who had been speedily trained to take up political work, intelligence and guerrilla fighting in their native country. An initial group of 23 were transported by submarine in August 1941, to be followed a month later by the so-called ‘parachutists’ who were dropped from an aircraft.68 The main intention was to lift the morale and capability of the Bulgarian party for clandestine activities. Yet it can hardly be overlooked that these were people who had been indoctrinated for years that Soviet interests and obedience to the Soviet institutions were paramount; many of them had been recruited by the Soviet special services. And while Germans, Czechs, Serbs and Hungarians were also sent back, it was the Poles towards whom the greatest degree of sensitivity was to be shown. Even though the Polish Communist Party no longer existed, a number of Polish Communists were living in the USSR, while others had fled there before Hitler’s advancing armies. As early as 4 July 1941, Dimitrov was involved in selecting a group to be transferred back to Poland. On 20 July, he wrote to Beria with a suggestion that

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other ‘honest Poles’ should be used in the patriotic Soviet war, most probably having in mind the establishment of Polish armed forces. This was pre-empted by the restoration of Soviet diplomatic relations with the Polish government-in-exile. Nevertheless, Stalin did not wait long before urging a Soviet-affiliated Communist resistance movement in Poland. On 27 August, talking to Dimitrov in the government’s underground shelter during an air-raid on Moscow, Stalin suggested ‘setting up a Polish Workers’ Party which would have a Communist programme’ and which should focus on the struggle for national liberation. The plan was immediately put into action: Dimitrov convened an initiative committee, including Marceli Nowotko, Bolesław Molojec and Paweł Finder, who in a few days worked out the political platform of the new Polish Workers’ Party (PPR). It would cooperate with other parties in a ‘national front to fight for Poland’s freedom and independence’. Formally, it was not a section of the Third International, but was directed by the ECCI and personally monitored by Dimitrov.69 Dimitrov had not forgotten his family in Bulgaria. The Soviet Legation in Sofia remained open as Bulgaria did not break off relations with the USSR, and the Soviet representative Alexander Lavrishchev kept Dimitrov updated on the well-being of his mother and elder sister, as well as delivering their allowances. Parashkeva Dimitrova had wanted to visit her son in Moscow in the summer of 1941, but was prevented by the German invasion. On the other hand, in late May Rosa Dimitrova’s mother, sister and niece arrived in Moscow. At the last possible moment for civilian travel ‘the whole Fleischmann clan’ was happily reunited under Dimitrov’s benevolent eye. A month after the German invasion, the families of Comintern functionaries were evacuated to Kuibishev, to the southeast of Moscow. Dimitrov’s wife, children and assorted relatives all made the 540-mile train journey, which lasted for three days. Dimitrov hated the separation from his family and spoke to them on the telephone as often as was technically possible; he also exchanged letters with his wife and son. Their initial accommodation was basic, small and pest-infested – a far cry from the comforts taken for granted in Moscow.70 It took three weeks to settle down, but Rosa bore it relatively well until the five-year-old Mitya, who had suffered a succession of illnesses, was pronounced on the verge of anaemia. This finally sent his mother into despair, and his father into action to use his influence: Dimitrov telephoned none other than a NKVD general in charge of the evacuation, demanding better conditions for his family, but by his own admission was given ‘a lot of waffle’.71 Remaining in Moscow, Dimitrov tried to keep to his previous routine as far as possible. He moved between his office at the Comintern, his city flat and the country house where on Sundays he was still joined by his remaining relatives. Over the summer, the fighting steadily approached the Russian capital, which was by now within the range of the Luftwaffe. In the first days of July there had already been several air-raid alarms; when Dimitrov first used the Politburo shelter at the Kirovskaya metro station, he was impressed by the ‘wonderful, solid equipment’. 72 In the following weeks, as the capital was subjected to relentless bombing by German aircraft, Dimitrov often found himself in the same shelter as Stalin. Here he was better able to talk with the Soviet leader and watch him at work for longer than at any previous time. On

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occasion, he saw Stalin’s philosophical side – for instance on 28 July, musing aloud on the ‘principles of holy wisdom: first – admitting one’s mistakes and shortages; second – correcting these mistakes and shortages’. At other times, Stalin presented the more familiar image of the powerful, arrogant master of Russia. On 17 August, again in the air-raid shelter, Dimitrov witnessed him pouring a stream of abuse and threats on Nikita Khrushchev over the high-frequency radio link. The Ukrainian leader was accused of behaving as a ‘petit bourgeois’, getting ready to surrender the remaining part of his country to the invading Germans, and warned that he would be soon ‘dealt with’ unless he ‘got his act together’. On 8 September, once more in the shelter Stalin was in a better, joking mood, already making post-war plans – saying that if the Soviets won, East Prussia would be populated with Slavs.73 Each day of that summer Dimitrov noted in his diary whether there had been airraid alerts. By the end of August and in September the German air campaign had eased somewhat, off but their troops pressed on. When on 13 October they reached Bryansk, around 260 miles to the west of Moscow, the capital began readying itself for the fight. Two days later, in a nonchalant manner, Stalin urged Dimitrov to evacuate. Most of the Comintern higher ranks, with Dimitrov at their head, boarded an eastbound train that same afternoon.74 Officially, the Comintern was transferred to Ufa, where it commandeered the Palace of Pioneers. More than 500 officials and technicians stationed there were placed under the executive directorship of Togliatti. A nearby kolhoz housed the ECCI political school run by Chervenkov. Here prospective Communist repatriates followed crash courses to equip them ideologically and politically for their forthcoming work in the field. Dimitrov himself remained in Kuibishev, to which the Soviet government and the diplomatic corps had been evacuated – and where his own family had settled. Dimitrov stayed there until March 1942, firmly in charge of what was now referred to as Institute 305. He himself had proposed that for political and conspiratorial purposes it was more favourable to operate under a different title, for instance the Institute for International Research.75 After the initial trauma of dislocation, and despite the complex logistics requiring constant written and verbal contacts between Ufa, Kuibishev and Moscow, the work of the Comintern gradually settled into a routine. The first major document to be adopted at Institute 305 was a ‘Directive to the Communist Parties’ concerning the situation at the front, dated 3 November. Here the ECCI asserted that Hitler’s military success was temporary and would not be followed by a lasting victory, but on the contrary would exhaust the capacity of the German army. Claiming that domestic resistance against the Axis powers was gathering force, the Comintern appealed to the international working class and all nations to support the Red Army and the Soviet people. It encouraged sabotage and strikes, demonstrations and, where possible, patriotic guerilla warfare.76 Dimitrov managed the whole operation, in both political and administrative terms, coordinating his most important decisions with Stalin, who had not left the capital. A large part of the work in Ufa was that of maintaining radio-broadcasting to countries abroad. Dimitrov was fully engaged in the daily work of the different country-sections – prescribing general guidance, monitoring the content of broadcasts and assessing

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their impact. In addition to the news bulletins and regular political analyses, the Comintern introduced an element of improvisation which soon became one of its most efficient and popular propaganda tools. The Communist presenters tuned into the wavelengths of the national stations in the Axis or occupied countries and interrupted their programmes, questioning and contradicting the official information, and so not only voiced the Soviet point of view but also amused their audience. The Comintern broadcasts publicised the actions of domestic resistance in Europe, and on occasion served as an organiser for the political opposition. In July 1941 the Bulgarian-language radio service commenced with Chervenkov as one of the main producer-presenters, while Dimitrov’s trusted associate Marek gained instant fame for his witty and articulate interruptions of Bulgarian radio schedules. It was in these Comintern broadcasts that significant political steps to be undertaken by the Communists in the country were announced. However, even though materials written by him were read out, Dimitrov never participated in person in either the Bulgarian or any other language transmission. This was in tune with the understanding that the Comintern as an institution should continue to keep a low profile in the course of a war depicted as patriotic. The same logic dictated that Dimitrov again stood back in the shadows of the celebrations marking the Bolshevik takeover of power. In a matterof-fact manner, but not without regret, he recorded the meetings and parades in both Moscow and Kuibishev on 7 November 1941, which he was prevented from attending in person as ‘it is not necessary to draw attention to the Comintern’.77 The Comintern, and Dimitrov in particular, were the most emphatic promoters of the concept of national resistance in occupied Europe. He continued to forward Stalin’s advice to Communists world-wide and to scrutinise subordinate parties for any ‘ideological deviations’. Having obtained information about the accelerating conflict between the two resistance forces in Yugoslavia, on 5 March 1942 Dimitrov seriously criticised Tito for advertising the Communist character of the Partisans and their goal as ‘sovietisation’: calling the fighting guerrillas a ‘proletarian brigade’ was a political mistake when the present aims should be a ‘broad national front’ against Hitler’s invasion. Less than two months later, even though he extolled the perspectives of the Partisan struggle to Stalin and accused the British of hindering it because of Tito’s proSoviet policy, Dimitrov offered Tito finely-nuanced advice: the Partisans should not criticise the Yugoslav government-in-exile directly, but should expose it for supporting the anti-German forces of Draža Mihajlović.78 In the meantime, and for the whole of the next 12 months, Dimitrov was the bearer of bad news on military aid to the Yugoslav Communists. Unaware that in principle Stalin refused to spare any weapons, Tito eventually sent Dimitrov a letter in which his disappointment was not disguised: he pleaded at least not to be hindered, if he were not helped. Dimitrov’s reply employed a highly conciliatory and defensive tone asking Tito ‘how he could ever doubt for an instant that the tiniest opportunity’ for help would not be seized. Disingenuously, he referred to ‘insurmountable technical difficulties and transport issues’.79 From a political perspective Dimitrov treated the Polish Communists similarly, advising them not to proclaim they were fighting for a government of workers and

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peasants but for defeat of the invader, national freedom and truly democratic rule. However, the newly re-established Polish Communists – uniquely during this period of the war – received some arms transferred through Soviet Partisans in the western border areas. On the other hand, Dimitrov seems to have exacerbated the internal squabbles among the Polish Communists by informing them of the existence of compromising information on some of them. It is not evident whether this was in any way related to the murder of Nowotko in November 1942, to be followed by that of the only witness, Molojec.80 Throughout the war, there was little change to the essence of Dimitrov’s work at the Comintern. His duty was to keep himself informed of current developments – both military and political – and translate them into directives for the Communist parties and more general propaganda in support of the Soviet cause. Dimitrov had a glimpse of some more specific operations, as he was regularly consulted on the recruitment of foreign nationals for the needs of the NKVD or military intelligence; for instance, in February 1942 he was asked to help with the infiltration of ‘Poles from our people’ into the Polish divisions that had been organised in the USSR and transferred to the Middle East.81 In December 1942, a Comintern commission, including Togliatti, Marty and Thorez, worked on documents with respect to the turning of the war on the Eastern front, but also reflecting on the new situation in France, where a possibility of a national uprising was foreseen. This would benefit enormously from the opening of a second front in Europe, which in turn, required the strengthening of the national front in most countries. One of the immediate tasks of the French Communists was to cooperate with de Gaulle and other resistance groups. Notably, support for the building of a French national army in North Africa was additionally prescribed, since it was hoped that Communist guerrillas would in the future form its nucleus. The main task of the Italian Communists was taking their country out of the war, which meant overthrowing Mussolini. This required that the party be strengthened and the left antifascist bloc become a more permanent organisation: ultimately all opposition to Mussolini should be coordinated in a national front. Here too, a national uprising was seen as the principal avenue for changing the regime, withdrawing from the war and installing a broad democratic government.82 Throughout 1942 and early 1943, Dimitrov was busy, but altogether calm and resolute in his work. His daily life did not seem too affected by the reality of war, until he was abruptly shaken out of his relative comfort when on 21 March 1943 his young son fell ill with diphtheria. For two weeks the boy suffered terribly, and despite the care of the best specialists he died on 3 April 1943, just a few days short of his seventh birthday. In Dimitrov’s diary, the description of the advance of the disease and the final hours of his son is restrained yet detailed. It affords a rare glimpse into Dimitrov’s most intimate thoughts and emotions. He tried to keep his composure and perform his usual duties; and when there was no more hope, he stayed by his dying son’s side until the last moment. The only days he did not go to the Comintern office were those of the death and funeral. Then he wrote, ‘with Mitya’s coffin three quarters of our personal life has burned . . . Such deep sadness can be understood only by someone

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who has personally experienced it’. The day after the funeral Dimitrov observed that ‘a big and happy page in our life was closed forever’; immediately he reminded himself that ‘Bolsheviks should not allow personal sadness to harm the cause’.83 He retreated into his busy work schedule, even though it was punctuated for months by visits to the graveyard, and overshadowed by concerns for his wife, whose deep grief eroded her nervous and physical condition. Attempts to relax and establish a more normal routine brought painful memories – Mitya’s love of films, his favourite playground in the countryside. Therefore it was probably still in a state of shock after the loss of his son that on 12 June Dimitrov sent a letter to Merkulov, the People’s Commissar of State Security, detailing his suspicions concerning the death. Evidently trying to rationalise the recent tragedy, he recounted what he believed had been strange circumstances surrounding the early diagnosis and treatment, and expressed general dissatisfaction with the medical care extended to the boy. Dimitrov proposed an investigation into the case which would attribute personal responsibility.84 His archive does not contain a response. Three weeks after Mitya’s death, Dimitrov received more bad news, from Bulgaria. One brother and two nephews were in prison for political activities, and his mother was gravely ill; it is not clear if Parashkeva Dimitrova was ever told that her youngest grandson had passed away.85 Against the background of ‘the indescribable desert’ in his personal life, Dimitrov did not seem agitated by the fact that the Comintern, the organisation that had been the anchor of his life for nearly two decades, was suddenly and speedily scheduled for dissolution. At the end of a normal day, Dimitrov and Manuilsky spent the evening of 8 May 1943 with Molotov. In Dimitrov’s words, a discussion of the Comintern’s future ‘concluded that in the existing circumstances, the Comintern in its capacity of a leading centre . . . was a hindrance to the independent development of the Communist parties and the fulfilment of their specific tasks’. The proposal to close it down was presented by Dimitrov as a joint effort in which he and his second-in-command had participated on an equal basis with the Soviet Foreign Minister. This is not substantiated by earlier documents or subsequent developments; yet nobody was particularly surprised at the turn of events. Unlike the intermittent attempt two years earlier, this time the Soviet leadership did not defer, and by 11 May Dimitrov and Manuilsky had already handed Stalin a project for a declaration by the Presidium of the ECCI for the Comintern’s dissolution. It stated that the organisation’s historic role had been to preserve the purity of Marxist doctrine, while more recently it had mobilised the masses against fascism and exposed Hitler’s aggression. However, in view of the more complex tasks now facing the working classes, the international centre had increasingly become not only superfluous but also occasionally a hindrance to Communist activism. As the war underlined the differences between countries, the struggle of the masses transcended the organisational framework of the Third International. Stalin approved the decree straight away, and also showed interest in the exact procedure for its adoption. When this was agreed, he spoke as if to console the Comintern leaders, reminding them that ‘experience has shown that there should not be an international leading centre for the

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whole world’, and instead wondered if some regional unions could be set up; but this ‘should not be rushed’ in any way.86 The following day Dimitrov personally informed most Presidium members one by one, as well as telegraphing key Communist leaders abroad, such as Mao, Tito, Pollitt, Duclos, Finder, Linderot for Scandinavia and Earl Browder for Latin America. On 13 May, as the Presidium of the ECCI was readying itself to discuss the declaration, Stalin sent Dimitrov a message cautioning against giving the impression that ‘leading international comrades were being chased away’. Stalin shared his idea that many of the Comintern’s staff would be involved in the production of foreign-language newspapers, targeting mainly Axis troops fighting against the Soviet Union. The Presidium meeting itself revealed complete unanimity: one after the other representatives of the principal European parties registered their total adherence to the proposal. Rákosi declared that although not easy, the step was correct; Thorez offered some subdued criticism reminding his audience that the Communists had failed to destroy Social Democracy or to prevent fascism from seizing power – indeed, from starting the war. Pieck admitted that if the previous day he had had some doubts, he was now already convinced that dissolution was the right tactic. A consensus emerged around the main points already discussed between Dimitrov and the Soviet leaders. Dimitrov also informed the individual parties, and allowed time for their considered responses – Stalin had decided that dissolution should take place ‘by popular demand’. The meetings at the Comintern continued over the following week, but they were mostly of an editorial nature, revolving around the wording of the declaration. Dimitrov consulted further with Stalin, Molotov and Malenkov, but the course of action was now firmly established. Only Kalinin, the official head of the Soviet state, suggested an alternative, namely relocating the Comintern to London, met by the Soviet Politburo with resounding laughter.87 However, there exist indications of unspoken concerns as to the grassroots reaction to the dissolution: on 4 June Dimitrov, the experienced faction-fighter, canvassed Communist leaders as to possible splinter groups and activity likely to lead to disorganisation. But no negative signals were registered.88 Ultimately, it was Stalin who chose the final wording and timing of the official declaration. On 8 June 1943, his decisions were rubber-stamped by a last meeting of the Presidium of the ECCI, orchestrated and conducted by Dimitrov. He expressed little emotion at the abolition of his highly-regarded post or at the disappearance of the organisation to which he had devoted 20 years of his life and career. Perhaps, the family tragedy he had endured only the previous month made him somewhat impervious even to such a momentous occurrence as the closure of the Comintern. On the whole, the atmosphere among the international Communists in Moscow was one of studied calm and restraint. This was reinforced by the fact that they were aware of Stalin’s sanctioning of the preservation and reorganisation of the Comintern’s ‘vital spheres’ of activity, among which were the national radio broadcasts, the foreign bureaux of the member parties and foreign communications.89 It was precisely these functions of the former Comintern that were taken over, only four days after its disbandment, by the new Department for International Information (DII) at the CC

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of the VKP(B). ‘So that enemies cannot use the fact that the Department is headed by Dimitrov’, Politburo member Alexander Shcherbakov was appointed its director.90 Dimitrov did not lose much more than his previous grand title. To Communist émigrés in the USSR and above all to the national Communist leadership he remained the principal point of contact with the Kremlin. The nature and intensity of his practical engagement with most foreign Communists’ activities hardly changed. On Soviet territory, he oversaw Communist propaganda and infiltration among the many nationalities of prisoners of war: the lecturers were former Comintern functionaries who were jointly responsible to the Political Department of the Red Army. Dimitrov also continued to manage the international radio-service, and its affiliated school which remained evacuated in the rear; he also provided overall guidance for the publishing house Supress, which produced foreign-language publications. Crucially, he mediated between the Soviet government and foreign Communist leaderships. The continuous stream of communications from the field was in most cases ultimately directed to Stalin; equally, the guidance Dimitrov imparted was based on verbal or written exchanges with the highest Soviet authorities. In the first instance, it was the affairs of the European parties that were at the centre of Dimitrov’s attention. He directed the establishment of the German Anti-fascist Committee in June–July 1943, hand-picked the members of the Polish Central Bureau of Communists in January 1944, and the following month advised on the formation of the Romanian Foreign Bureau. He guided the French Communists through their uneasy relations with De Gaulle, similarly prescribed the Italian Communists’ attitude towards the government of Badoglio, and also towards the occupying Anglo-American forces: he warned them not to refuse cooperation but to keep this to the bare minimum.91 The Yugoslav Communists were the beneficiaries of the most detailed advice – warning against British interests, insisting on more flexibility regarding the King, supporting criticism of the Bulgarian Communist resistance in Macedonia. Tito was proving a most reliable partner in south-eastern Europe, someone on whom Dimitrov could rely for up-to-date information about the Greek guerrillas and communications with other resistance movements in the region; he was even used as one link to the Italians.92 Dimitrov did not hesitate to become involved in acts of Communist violence, whether within the ranks or against enemies. On 11 September 1943 Dimitrov sent Tito approval of the decision to shoot those of General Vlasov’s Russian soldiers held in custody.93 He justified the killing of Lukas Lipski, claiming that he was one of the provocateurs who had organised the unauthorised Communist Party of Poland. On the whole, the Polish Communists presented serious difficulties, as they were the most inclined to follow an openly independent course of national resistance – like other Communist parties gaining prominence through their patriotic efforts, they were also more radical in the plans they announced, and appeared to be advocating nationalisation of the economy as one of their goals after victory had been gained.94 Dimitrov also maintained a dialogue with non-European Communists. For the People’s Party of Iran he specified the tactics of supporting, while staying outside, the current government; this should be coupled with further mass mobilisation, and

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especially with the penetration of key trade unions. On China, he continued to exert pressure on Mao for moderation. On 23 November 1943 Dimitrov was briefed by Soviet officers who had just returned from China, and who doubted the chances for a genuine agreement between the Communists and the Nationalists. This precipitated ‘private’ letters from Dimitrov to both Wang Ming and Mao Tse-dong. The former, a close friend in the past, was advised that Chinese internal tensions should be resolved on the ground, as it would be presently impossible to afford specific Soviet involvement. This was also confirmed in a message to Mao in which Dimitrov expressed his ‘personal’ worries about the situation. He insisted that the struggle against the Japanese invaders should not decrease, and that the policy of a united front should be upheld. Dimitrov also took care to mention that the likes of Chou En-lai and Wang Ming should not be persecuted as ‘dogmatics’, and questioned some reported ‘unhealthy’ attitudes in the CCP towards the Soviet Union. In a nutshell, this unofficial communication contained most Soviet concerns regarding the Chinese Communists, and its messages were well understood by them. 95 All of Dimitrov’s correspondents, rightfully, continued to see him as an intermediary and spokesman for Stalin. In July 1943, Dimitrov fell ill with pneumonia and was out of action for three weeks, after which he continued to feel ‘weak and shattered’. He had not fully recovered when in early September he was diagnosed with a prostate infection. The crisis was such that on 13 October Dimitrov wrote in his diary that ‘a battle between life and death’ was taking place. He remained in hospital until 20 November, and after that was advised to stay in his country house and only attempt a little work from there. Only in early January did he return to his office at the CC of the VKP(B); in the meantime he had been officially appointed to the position of Head of the Department of International Information, with Manuilsky once again his deputy. Throughout the spring of 1944, Dimitrov continued to suffer various health problems, including asthma, diabetes and liver disorder. Nevertheless, work constituted his only escape from illness and sadness. He also retained the prestige of the SecretaryGeneral of the Comintern: foreign Communists in Moscow naturally gravitated towards him, due to long-established habits, hierarchies and personal sympathies. Resistance leaders abroad communicated with him in the knowledge that their concerns would be forwarded to the Soviet government; the great merit of his advice was precisely that it reflected Soviet thinking. Just as the Comintern was deliberately retreating from public view, Bulgaria gradually moved more clearly into the focus of Dimitrov’s attention. At the end of August 1943, with the premature death of King Boris III, who had after 1936 taken the reins of the country firmly in his hands, and with the domestic political balance strained, questions about foreign orientation became particularly pertinent. The opportunities for change reinvigorated the Communists after two years of isolated antiGerman acts and a year of negligible political activity, despite the nominal formation of the Fatherland Front (FF), a coalition with leftist Agrarians, Social Democrats and Zveno proclaimed on 17 July 1942 on the Comintern-run Bulgarian radio station. On the King’s death, Dimitrov dictated an initial short radio broadcast enticing the

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Bulgarian army and people into forcing a break-up with the Axis and bringing to power a national government. He reconvened the Bulgarian Foreign Bureau, which had for some time been languishing, and the recently estranged Kolarov re-entered Dimitrov’s inner social circle. Dimitrov now approached Stalin, suggesting that mass demonstrations and strikes be staged in Bulgaria to complement the increase in armed guerilla actions. Such a course of action had been decided upon by the internal CC, which desired to exploit the improving situation on the Eastern front but was also concerned that Bulgaria might no longer be able to avoid fighting against the Soviets. Dimitrov’s line, however, differed substantially from the policy of the internal leadership, who for more than six months had held to their goal of an ‘armed people’s uprising’.96 Without granting Dimitrov an interview, Stalin still approved his proposals, as is evident from an article entitled ‘Whither Bulgaria?’ in Pravda of 16 September. In it Dimitrov elaborated on the efforts necessary to detach Bulgaria from Germany, as a step towards extricating itself from of the war. This was not only an affirmation of Communist policy but also an avowal of Soviet interest. Dimitrov was driven by the realisation that the Bulgarian Communists needed to seize the moment, and appreciated the urgent need for increased training of political and military personnel and for the boosting of propaganda. Aiming to reinforce the political leadership of the party made Dimitrov and Kolarov realise how very few people they could command to work on the ground. They began looking for suitable Bulgarian cadres farther afield, including in the Soviet concentration camps. It was with this in mind that on 22 November 1943 Dimitrov wrote once again to Merkulov requesting the re-examination of the cases of 40 Bulgarian émigrés who had been interned in the late 1930s. Dimitrov reminded him of the casualties the Bulgarian Communists had incurred in ‘the struggle against fascism’ and ventured that ‘a number of honest persons’ were languishing in ‘corrective institutions’ because they had been ‘framed’. Implicitly and belatedly posing questions about the purges, this intervention was dictated above all by current practical necessities. However, it had little direct effect, as a month later he was advised that only seven cases could be reviewed: more than half of the people on the list had been executed or had died, and the others’ sentences were upheld.97 In March 1944, the Bulgarian Communists reported persistent shortages of weapons and personnel for their regional committees. Accordingly, Dimitrov increased the effort to facilitate the transfer of trusted cadres; he was similarly looking to support the Yugoslav and Polish resistance.98 The logistics of the return to Bulgaria, however, encountered severe obstacles, including faulty wireless transmitters and missing equipment. Marek, who was supervising the departures to Bulgaria, was driven to write several letters to Dimitrov full of dismay and disgust at the chaos, possible misappropriation and bureaucratic callousness at the distribution centre in Kalinovka in Ukraine. In one of his missives, he claimed that the émigrés were being treated like ‘dead men’.99 As fate would have it, several months later Marek died in a plane-crash en route to Bulgaria.100

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Dimitrov saw it as his duty to treat all Communists sent back to their countries to a personal farewell meeting. In these sessions Dimitrov specified what information to collect, which groups to target and how to organise political work. Military training and intelligence tasks were coordinated with the relevant Soviet services, but Dimitrov insisted on handling the political induction of the repatriates himself. To those venturing into occupied Europe, a meeting with Dimitrov was truly inspirational: for many Communists he was above all the Leipzig legend whom it was a privilege to meet; and he could also be extremely charming and down-to-earth with sympathisers and dedicated Communists. He was now the undisputed leader of the Bulgarian Communists, and in the spring of 1944 the internal party also proposed that he should be widely hailed as a national leader. Dimitrov’s instructions were obeyed, even if this meant a reversal of previous tactics. At the beginning of 1944, the internal leaders progressively called for insurrectionary struggle in the name of a Fatherland Front government; they believed that the Hristo Botev radio station run by the Comintern, which constantly appealed for an increase in the fighting, had effectively signalled an uprising. But Dimitrov quickly ruled out such over-ambitious goals: not only did he disappoint his comrades over the chances of obtaining weapons from the Soviets, on 1 March 1944 he also warned against an imminent independent uprising. Instead, he directed them to resume efforts to cooperate with other political forces. Under his tutelage, the CC soon reported back that it had ‘created in [the] partners the conviction’ that the Communists were fighting for national democratic government.101 Eager to secure Soviet interests in Bulgaria, Dimitrov warned the CC against any British approaches, in particular cautioning against political undertakings. Dimitrov feared that imperialist Britain might try to trade immediate material help for future political influence; he suspected that through the Military Missions that the British had operated since the end of 1943, they were aiming to destroy the Partisans’ potential for taking power at the end of the war.102 On the other hand, he was conscious of the creeping tensions between Bulgarian and Yugoslav Communists on the thorny issue of Macedonia. Dimitrov appreciated Tito’s role in the whole of the Balkan region, and was painfully aware how little had been done in Moscow to offer the Partisans practical help. In early January 1944 Dimitrov emphasised to departing émigrés that the status of the historically-disputed area should be resolved only after the war – under Soviet arbitration. 103 Despite this conciliatory stance, a major misunderstanding soon erupted about the participation of some members of the BRP(K) as Macedonian representatives in the newly-formed Yugoslav Assembly. As the Macedonian problem could potentially sour relations among the Balkan Communists, Dimitrov judged it as deserving an extensive statement to Stalin on 16 April. In it he shared again the moderate view that long-term solutions should await the end of the war, and that the moment was inopportune for advocating the objective of a Balkan federation, which remained unforgotten. It was hardly a coincidence that shortly afterwards, on 19 April, Tito – who had insisted that his prestige would suffer if Bulgaria were to enlarge its territory – was advised that all

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political issues regarding Yugoslavia, including Macedonia, would be settled in Moscow.104 In the meantime Bulgaria was subjected to heavy Allied bombing, especially in January and March 1944, when serious physical damage was inflicted and the Bulgarian government was paralysed. Nonetheless, the tactic failed to secure a rupture with the Axis, which had been its principal rationale. The British military had informed Stalin of the pending air-strikes and found him surprisingly forthcoming. Further, through the British Military Missions, which had found their way to the Bulgarian guerrillas in the south-western parts of the country, the latter had requested bombing of particular areas of Sofia. An official Bulgarian approach to the Soviet representative in Ankara had been given the cold shoulder, even if as early as January 1944 Molotov had told Dimitrov of Soviet readiness to mediate between the Bulgarian opposition and the Western Allies.105 Later claims that the bombing ceased due to Dimitrov’s intervention with Stalin are not even marginally supported by the available evidence; the eventual suspension of the raids, in April 1944, was ordered by the British Air Command because of change in its priorities. Meanwhile, between January and May 1944, the Soviet government was supporting the objectives of the Allies by exerting pressure on Bulgaria to abandon Germany. At the time of a final diplomatic note in mid-May, Molotov told Dimitrov that his patience was running out and that soon the Soviets would resort to declaring war on Bulgaria; Dimitrov was fully supportive of the tough Soviet stance.106 In the spring of 1944, Dimitrov also became progressively interested in Eastern Europe following the Soviet military advance. As he was in and out of hospital and undergoing complex medical treatment, he was unable to work at full capacity. This resulted in fewer direct contacts with the higher echelons of the Soviet government, but was hardly the main reason why he was relatively distanced from Soviet post-war planning for Europe, which had entered into an active phase after Stalin’s representative had joined the European Advisory Commission in London the previous October. Indeed, by then the so-called Litvinov Commission had put forward the idea of regional federations, including a Balkan or Danubian one. A separate analysis of the prospective balance of power offered in January 1944 by another Soviet diplomat, Ivan Maisky, also foresaw Bulgaria clearly positioned in the Soviet sphere of influence. 107 Dimitrov was neither consulted over the preparation of these reports, nor formally acquainted with their conclusions. However, he was at the centre of more immediate planning of Communist tactics. Seeking to establish themselves as prime political forces at the end of the war, the Communist parties saw their future in relation to longer-term Soviet aspirations. But in the first instance they were to attempt to gain maximum mass support and to stand at the head of anti-fascist and anti-Axis alliances propagating liberation and democratisation. Ultimately, their goal was to transform the loose resistance coalitions into effective governments. This would also be the vehicle through which many Communist parties would for the first time have a plausible chance of power. Accordingly, Dimitrov worked to find the Communist personalities best-equipped to carry through the policy, to help them form strong and dedicated national nuclei, and

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to direct them in their attempts to portray themselves as patriots and democrats. It is striking how little Dimitrov’s efforts were informed by the evolving dynamic of the Grand Alliance. His diary hardly ever mentions the negotiations and ongoing exchanges among the three Allies, even if a great deal of these concerned Eastern Europe. From Dimitrov’s perspective, Stalin and Molotov were those entrusted with securing the post-war settlement; his own task was to ensure that the Communists were well-prepared to operate within the framework that Soviet policy would provide for them. In mid-April 1944 Dimitrov began holding more frequent meetings with the leading Bulgarian activists in Moscow. In unison with the ongoing Soviet diplomatic offensive, the focus of the newly-activated Foreign Bureau was on the necessity of increasing pressure on the pro-German government and forcing the few remaining German troops out of the country. On 10 May 1944, from his hospital bed, Dimitrov elaborated a plan centred on the guerrilla movement securing a Partisan base in southwestern Bulgaria similar to the free territories held by the Yugoslav fighters; in fact, help from Tito would be crucial. Another key element, long-present in Communist tactics, was the persistent infiltration of the army to fit in with the necessity to increase current levels of fighting but also to underpin a future bid for power. The plan for Bulgaria was discussed in person with the visiting Milovan Djilas, Tito’s close affiliate.108 Claiming to be following an earlier communication from Dimitrov, at this very moment Bulgarian guerrillas were moving into western Bulgaria from their base in Yugoslavia; their aim was the second-largest city of Plovdiv, from where a final assault on the government was to be organised. Although they had just received a large British consignment of arms and other necessities, the Partisans’ attempt ended in total disaster as the so-called Second Sofia brigade, accompanied by the British Liaison Officers Mostyn Davies and Frank Thompson, was wiped out by government forces; in these clashes Dimitrov’s eldest nephew was also killed. The Soviet representatives in Bulgaria now explored the option of granting Soviet citizenship to some of Dimitrov’s remaining relatives. 109 However, the gravely ill Parashkeva Dimitrova died in Samokov, in the care of her elder daughter. Both had preserved their religion, and Pastor Vassil Zyapkov, a prominent Protestant minister whose church Dimitrov’s mother had attended, was called to her deathbed.110 She had dictated a few words for her famous son, asking him to be generous to his sister and expressing sorrow for not seeing her grandchildren, ‘but God so ruled’; but Dimitrov did not see this farewell note until 18 months later.111 Illness and personal tragedy now marked Dimitrov’s everyday existence, and he fought against them by persisting with a ‘normal’ routine. Even in hospital he was regularly updated on developments regarding most European Communist parties, and he still communicated with distant places such as the USA, Mexico and China. One after another Dimitrov’s immediate associates dispersed as the war’s end approached. In March 1944, Palmiro Togliatti departed for Italy with Stalin’s express instructions for political moderation and work for national unity, and in July Manuilsky was appointed Foreign Minister of Ukraine and took his farewell after ten years of working by Dimitrov’s side. Maurice Thorez who – as a war deserter – was prevented from

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entering France legally, was causing Dimitrov concern: the Frenchman had to be repeatedly rebuked for lack of interest and poor performance, and eventually was ordered, in a ‘comradely’ talk, to ‘pull himself together’.112 All around Dimitrov, his most prominent foreign colleagues, including a number of Bulgarians, were getting ready to leave Moscow. Gradually yet noticeably, over the summer of 1944 Dimitrov’s involvement in the affairs of the various Communist parties lessened and modified. He was still keenly interested and met often with the remaining foreign representatives in Moscow, but as most leading national Communists were directly taking charge of their parties, their growing operational independence and detachment from the former leader of the Comintern became obvious. More often than not, Dimitrov was simply being updated on a fast-evolving situation and able to give only very general guidance, along the lines of upholding the national front, in its variations between different countries. It was not uncommon that individual Communists or national groups would meet Stalin in person, and Dimitrov would only later be informed of the conversations in a rather general manner. The Soviet Union was seeking to be acknowledged by the Western Allies as the preponderant power in Eastern Europe, and simultaneously nuclei of hitherto exiled Communists were preparing to participate in the first post-war national governments. These two processes were interrelated, but could take place without the persistent involvement of the remnants of the Comintern. It was somewhat ironic that exactly when the prospects of many European Communist parties were looking up, the institution that had traditionally shaped their doctrine and policy no longer existed, while its successor, the DII, had a much more limited remit. Even though the Comintern had become redundant as an intermediary between the Soviet government and foreign Communists, the latter were far from emancipated from Moscow. Since the early stages of the war émigré activists had undergone training and worked in close contact with different Soviet authorities, including the military and the Foreign Ministry. This occasionally created confusion as to Dimitrov’s precise position. For instance, on 22 June 1944 he complained to Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Vyshinsky that officials had edited a statement by the Bulgarian Communists broadcast over the Russian international radio. Dimitrov was irritated that a document he had cleared was subject to bureaucratic control; he apparently failed to appreciate that the Bulgarians were treated like any other Communists and that his nominally high-ranking position did not supersede the usual lines of command. Developments in his native Bulgaria naturally began to take priority in Dimitrov’s attention. At the beginning of June Soviet pressure finally resulted in a new Bulgarian cabinet, headed by the right Agrarian Ivan Bagryanov. In Dimitrov’s view, the new government remained essentially pro-German and he therefore sent a directive that the Communists should continue the armed struggle. Firmly convinced that this was the correct course, Dimitrov made the rare move of updating Stalin only after instructing the Bulgarians. Additionally, Bulgarian-language broadcasts reiterated the necessity of launching a national uprising – with the crucial involvement of the army, which should be persistently infiltrated.113 On 12 July Dimitrov’s directives crossed with information that the Bulgarian Communists had entered into unofficial negotiations

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with Bagryanov, who even offered to supply food to the Partisans if they abstained from armed clashes. The CC already admitted to ‘being duped’ by the new prime minister, but excused its naivety by quoting earlier instructions from Dimitrov to support any government willing to break with Germany and by the preceding threemonth gap in communications with Moscow. 114 Dimitrov was dismayed at the magnitude of the political blunder, and responded by sharply castigating the Bulgarian leadership’s massive error of judgement. He refused to acknowledge the lack of direct contacts, as throughout the period the Hristo Botev radio station had delivered unambiguous messages. Pointing to the temporary silence in the Soviet media, he insisted it should be obvious that it was due to ‘the patience of the Soviet friends, not their support for Bagryanov’. He demanded an end to all talks and a ‘total increase of Partisan struggle against the Germans’.115 Of the requests for Soviet delivery of weapons, US$50,000 financial help and a reinforcement of personnel, only the last one was being addressed.116 For the next two weeks Dimitrov remained critical of the Bulgarian Communists, and even shared some of Tito’s dissatisfaction with them, but he understood the urgency of advancing them as a plausible political alternative in Bulgaria. He encouraged them to strengthen the larger leftist coalition within which they operated. At the same time Dimitrov was not alerted to approaches made in the first half of 1944 by a number of democratic politicians seeking direct links with the Soviet Embassy in Sofia.117 The dynamic military and political events in the Balkans exposed the inadequacies of the policy of procrastination adopted by Bagryanov, who went no further than declaring neutrality on 17 August. This failed to satisfy the Soviets, who insisted on a declaration of war with Germany, while the Red Army was marching unhindered across Romania. On 1 September another Agrarian, Konstantin Muraviev, was appointed prime minister in an effort to boost the peace-feeler mission sent to the Western Allies and to make some concessions to the leftist opposition, who were now working in the open. Although the Fatherland Front had nominally supported the new government and was offered four portfolios in it, these remained unfilled. Dimitrov insisted to Stalin that Muraviev was not equipped for solving the current political crisis.118 Like the Communists inside the country, Dimitrov sensed that the moment had arrived when they could raise the stakes and press for a government dominated by the Fatherland Front. They were poised to take advantage of the fact that an armistice with the Western Allies was eluding the government and Soviet troops were literally at Bulgaria’s northern border. This determined the timing of an order on 1 September, from the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Insurrectionary Army, that is the Partisans, for the launch of the long-awaited armed uprising in a week’s time, to be preceded by a general strike. The absence of documentary evidence of specific consultations with either Dimitrov or any Soviet agency does not prove that this was an autonomous decision, especially since the Soviet High Command and the NKVD operated their own channels of information and communication. Indeed, to the political leadership of the Bulgarian guerrillas it was crystal clear that at last domestic

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and external factors had converged in their favour – a moment for which they had been directed by Dimitrov to look out since the spring of 1941. On 5 September 1944 Dimitrov was suddenly informed by Molotov of an imminent Soviet declaration of war on Bulgaria. Dimitrov had not participated in this pivotal decision; he was simply required for fine-tuning the contents of the diplomatic démarche at the last stage before its delivery. Afterwards, he was propelled into activities which left little room for improvisation. First he telegraphed the group of NKVD officers of Bulgarian origin headed by Ivan Vinarov, who had been transferred to the Bulgarian Communist guerrillas, instructing them to declare a state of high readiness for combat, while the political leadership should press for a government of the Fatherland Front: all this had already been undertaken on the spot. His preoccupation was that Bulgarian forces or German troops stationed in Bulgaria might go into battle against the Red Army, something that the Communists must forestall with all the means at their disposal.119 Ostensibly, the Soviet High Command was also uncertain about the situation, so the Third Ukrainian Front paused north of the Danube before entering Bulgaria. This has led to a multitude of speculations about the Soviet role in the subsequent takeover of power in Sofia, and Dimitrov’s function as an intermediary between the Bulgarian Communists and the Kremlin. Dimitrov’s dispatches were not delivered until 10 September – when they had become obsolete in terms of developments on the spot. They serve both to indicate Soviet thinking at the moment of entry into Bulgaria and to emphasise that Dimitrov was not fully in charge of his party at arguably the most crucial moment in its history. Meanwhile, he was busy selecting more Bulgarian nationals for transfer into the country, including a dedicated group for army intelligence. Aware that a Partisan division was being organised from survivors of the May–June calamities on the western border, he requested Soviet weapons for it, in the expectation that efforts to seize power would require time and resources. The situation in Bulgaria was extremely volatile, and the multiple factors at play were not necessarily coordinated. The Muraviev government had proclaimed neutrality, and German troops were retreating, so Stalin had little formal pretext to declare war on Bulgaria, which moreover asked for a truce immediately after receiving the Soviet declaration of war – and was equally quickly granted it by Marshal Tolbukhin, the commander of the Third Ukrainian Front. Even so, the Communist CC proceeded with its plans for strikes, anti-government rallies and a general show of force leading to an all-out uprising. Although these would all be advertised as initiatives of the Fatherland Front rather than of the BRP(K), the core players at all levels were Communist. By 6 September, in a further development, officers from Zveno had recruited the minister of war for a military coup scheduled for 8–9 September. While Dimitrov was being duly updated, the pace and nature of events turned him into a distant observer who simply forwarded information to Stalin. On 7 September, Dimitrov asked Molotov for an urgent delivery of weapons and for additional Soviet officers to be sent to Bulgaria.120 He had convened those members of the Bulgarian FB who remained in Moscow, but for the moment they were on stand-by and did no more than collect and filter information.

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The FF’s plan went smoothly, and key government, military and communications positions in Sofia fell into the hands of the plotters, with minimal effort and without bloodshed. It was a proclamation on Radio Sofia at 6 o’clock in the morning of 9 September by the new Zveno Prime Minister, Kimon Georgiev, that first informed Dimitrov of the safe establishment and the composition of the new government. It consisted of four ministers from each of the Communists, Zveno and the leftist Agrarians, as well as two Social Democrats and two nominally independent politicians. Uncertain about the credentials of even some of the Communist members, Dimitrov demanded more details and forwarded personality references to Stalin only on 14 September.121 The Bulgarian CC made every effort to update Dimitrov fully, considering it its duty to gain the approval of its recognised leader-in-exile. But the excitement and confusion, the mountainous agenda and the sudden quantum leap in the available amount of information accounted for the fact that in the early hours and days of FF rule Dimitrov received only sporadic and partial glimpses of developments. Yet, his true role was not in the operational command of actions in Bulgaria, but rather in their overall political guidance. In this he had the support of the Soviet government; he also began consulting with the Soviet High Command and the Soviet representatives in the Allied Control Commission, set up by the Allies to administer the armistice. A substantial number of Soviet troops occupied Bulgaria. Contrary to fears on the right or even inflated expectations on the left of the political spectrum, Dimitrov was eager that the new regime should appear as moderate and non-revolutionary as possible. One of his first communications, on 9 September 1944, already warned against the establishment of Bolshevik-style councils in Varna on the Black Sea coast; a week later Dimitrov practically forbade the use of the term ‘antifascist revolution’, as too reminiscent of the ideas of class war.122 This fully reflected the attitude of the high-ranking Soviet military, who were openly contemptuous of any desire by local Communists to unleash revolution in the rear of the Red Army. The Soviet preference for calm and order in the occupied territories led to some tragicomic situations. For instance, in Varna the Soviet troops appeared sooner than the local Communists expected them – the latter had ‘only just managed to carry out’ a proSoviet, pro-FF rally in the town centre. Worse still, the Soviet officers were less than appreciative of efforts to install Communists in office, and twice forcefully deposed local activists from their revolutionary posts, re-installing the previous authorities. 123 When shortly afterwards a group of Pravda war correspondents shared their first impressions of Bulgaria with Dimitrov, they also criticised instances of radicalism, such as soldiers taking the law in their own hands and removing officers, the preponderance of red banners instead of the national tricolour at public meetings, and the appearance of what were judged outright provocative slogans such as ‘Down with capitalism’. Obviously, the FF saw the entry of the Soviet army not as liberation but as ‘armed support for the establishment of Soviet regime’;124 and this was not the Soviet approach. As to Dimitrov’s own view, there is no solid evidence that he was more radical than the face value of his communications with Sofia suggests. He had no reason to deviate from the policy of a broad national front, which seemed particularly

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logical for one who had been the figurehead of the popular-front idea. The real questions in Bulgaria were of course about the substance, not the form of the FF coalition, and whether Dimitrov considered it anything other than a means to an end. On 12 September 1944 the Foreign Bureau was dismantled; and when the CC was eventually reconstituted in Sofia a month later, Dimitrov was unanimously elected its Chairman. By then communication between him and Sofia were regularised, using Soviet-trained technical staff who were in all probability still on active Soviet service – they were referred to by the Bulgarian Communists as ‘your people’. Contact between Dimitrov and the CC was mostly arranged by Traicho Kostov.125 In the months after the FF takeover Dimitrov was in the awkward position of being universally recognised as the leader of the Bulgarian Communists, while remaining in Moscow, because Stalin so decreed. The fact that he was not free to return home and take command of the main ruling party is more than illustrative of his dependence on the Soviets. And it was not as if Dimitrov was busy in the USSR with other, non-Bulgarian, developments. His Russian deputies were dealing well with the affairs of the Department of International Information. In September 1944 Dimitrov oversaw Ana Pauker’s return to Romania as the Moscow-backed leader of the Romanian Communists. His counterparts in the other European Communist parties and erstwhile subordinates, such as the Polish Bierut, the Hungarian Rákosi and the Czech Gottwald, were among the many returning to their own countries in the wake of the Soviet march towards Berlin. Uniquely in Eastern Europe, Dimitrov’s exile was prolonged; even more interestingly, Kolarov, the other senior Bulgarian Communist was also kept in Moscow, as a token of Stalin’s desire to appear moderate and cooperative to the Western Allies. Ironically, Dimitrov’s former glory now precluded him from achieving his ultimate aspiration, and so he had to settle for volumes of daily communication with Sofia, and a stream of Bulgarian and Soviet military, government and party visitors travelling both ways. This was nothing new – Dimitrov had decades of experience of leading from a distance. And while the members of the Bulgarian Politburo lamented that he was not there to guide and inspire their work, Dimitrov himself never complained. To the ordinary non-Communist Bulgarian he became ‘Telegram George’. Late into 1944, he was continuing to direct émigrés into the country: groups of around six to eight were departing every fortnight, with some returning to the Soviet Union for debriefing before being posted again. Not a few were initially sent on Soviet missions, and later returned as Bulgarian party cadres. The need for trained and trustworthy personnel at central and local level was immense, and in December Dimitrov searched again for acceptable candidates who might be released from the Soviet prisons.126 He was thoroughly engaged with those selected for duty in Bulgaria – from appointing them to providing for the families they left behind. Occasionally, unpleasant situations occurred, as for instance two old NKVD hands surfaced in Bulgaria, precipitating hostility and intrigue. One was Shpiner, well-known to Dimitrov and notorious for sending a number of comrades to the gallows during the

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Purge. Dimitrov was approached by several associates, including Kolarov, advising him that such ‘compromised people’ should be kept away from conspicuous positions.127 Dimitrov also continued to mediate between the BRP(K) and Moscow. He dutifully informed Stalin about developments in Bulgaria, even though the Soviet occupation army, the Soviet political representatives and numerous Soviet special agents were reporting through their hierarchies. For the Bulgarian party, meanwhile, it was extremely useful to have Dimitrov in Moscow. Not only did he introduce the constant stream of emissaries to the diplomatic and bureaucratic subtleties of the Soviet capital, but also lobbied the Soviet authorities on the speedy and favourable resolution of issues arising from Bulgaria’s defeated and occupied status. He did not seek to alter established Soviet policies but was most useful in facilitating access and ensuring smooth contacts with the top echelons of the Soviet government. Even if the Bulgarian Communists’ expectations of Dimitrov’s ability to influence the Soviet Government were too high, they benefited from his insights and support. On 22 September 1944 Dimitrov sent Stalin additional information about the situation in Bulgaria, summarising the report of a party delegation headed by CC member Dimitur Ganev. Among other issues, Dimitrov ventured to raise some sensitive points, such as the lack of a fixed exchange rate for the rouble (which fed the black market), and the resumption of fishing on the Black Sea coast. Most importantly, he drew attention to the occupying forces’ arbitrary confiscation of cattle, foodstuffs and vehicles, and worse, the drunken behaviour of soldiers who were pillaging and raping. Dimitrov was careful to stress that he was highlighting what were isolated incidents, but which could nevertheless erode respect for the Red Army. 128 While the confiscation issues were resolved, Stalin’s response to the complaints of soldiers’ behaviour is not known; at least there is no record of the irritation and outright hostility with which Tito was met when he raised similar concerns. Several days later, Dimitrov pleaded for a more positive attitude to Bulgaria than the Soviet Union had demonstrated so far: he alerted Molotov to the fact that ‘the comrades in Sofia are concerned that the Soviet press does not relate and does not appreciate developments in Bulgaria’.129 At the time of the armistice negotiations in Moscow in mid-October 1944, Dimitrov continued to operate in the background. Even the non-Communist delegates expected that he would protect the general Bulgarian interest, and accepted his advice on the best way of presenting their concerns. Petko Stainov, the Zveno Foreign Minister, wrote to Dimitrov in flattering terms. For his part, Dimitrov paid special attention to the Communists and was most interested in ensuring the positive attitude of each delegate towards the Soviet Union. Stalin and Molotov were fully aware of Dimitrov’s activities, which were in a sense a double-check on the actions of the Bulgarian Communists, yet on occasion they were slightly irritated with Dimitrov’s use of personal privileges. When, for instance, Dimitrov asked about the return of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry’s archive, seized by Soviet ‘investigative organs’, Molotov pointed out that such a request had to be filed through the proper diplomatic channels.130

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Traicho Kostov, the newly-emerging leading light among the wartime underground activists and Vulko Chervenkov, Dimitrov’s brother-in-law, who was transferred into Bulgaria shortly after 9 September, were Dimitrov’s most regular correspondents. Kostov in particular was Dimitrov’s designated Politburo liaison, penning hundreds of letters and telegrams, of varying length and often written in Russian. In the early weeks he was writing almost daily, and at times of urgency several times a day; although often complaining of a huge workload, he did not comment on the fact that the stretched lines of command and communication with Dimitrov increased his burden. The internal leaders admitted to Dimitrov that for weeks after the takeover the situation in Bulgaria was ‘totally chaotic’. The CC itself operated by improvisation, and early on differences emerged among the leading figures. Dimitrov demanded timely information on the state of affairs, and encouraged the top Communists to report on their colleagues to him; not only was this unquestioningly accepted but it was immediately put into practice. In mid-October 1944, Chervenkov sent Dimitrov a record of the misbehaviour of various members of the CC: Dobri Terpeshev, an older Communist, was rash in his actions and advocated radical opinions such as claiming that the Narrow period had been ‘a genius implementation of Marxism . . . just like Leninism in Russian conditions’; the Communist Regent Todor Pavlov refused any coordination with the party leadership; and Dimitur Ganev, in charge of the party newspaper Rabotnichesko Delo, was too slow in his work. Furthermore, the Communist ministers ‘lacked the habit of checking the opinion of the Politburo for everything’ and were thus ‘prone to mistakes’.131 Kostov also called on Dimitrov to discipline Pavlov, who had demonstrated independence and overestimated his personal position, as well as Terpeshev, who was somewhat of a loose cannon. Later General Kinov, the new Chief of Staff, was exposed for ‘not listening even to the Soviet instructors in the army’.132 Although Kostov and Chervenkov were Dimitrov’s most dedicated correspondents, many other high-level Communist functionaries also shared their views and concerns. All of them unequivocally recognised Dimitrov as the highest authority in Communist internal affairs and accepted him as the ultimate arbiter in any disagreements. Dimitrov commanded respect and admiration equally from the leadership of the BRP(K) and the rank-and-file. Even though his authority was proven daily, he went through bouts of jealousy and impatience: at the beginning of 1945 he suspected Kostov and the whole CC of ‘not showing the necessary attention’ to his advice – which elicited Kostov’s immediate assurances that all Communist work was based on nothing else. Another reprimand was that the role of the Red Army in Bulgaria was not sufficiently acknowledged.133 Kostov was genuinely puzzled by Dimitrov’s dissatisfaction, as he could not ‘remember a single directive of yours which we did not agree to and which we did not start to fulfil’. For instance, immediate notice had been taken of Dimitrov’s criticisms of the economic plan and his views on the trade unions. Kostov wondered if Dimitrov was unhappy because the reports that reached Moscow were not sufficiently exhaustive: indeed, Kostov admitted that being overwhelmed with work he had thought he should seek consultation mostly on the ‘difficult, complex

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issues’. On another occasion, in May 1945, Kostov had to apologise because his assurances that Dimitrov’s directives ‘would be fulfilled’ had been translated into Russian (the language in which the correspondence was coded) as ‘would be taken into account’ – which turned out to be unacceptable.134 Dimitrov had shown a special interest in the security of party leaders, admonishing the members of the Politburo to acquire personal security guards. He was also concerned that ‘vigilance and conspiracy were at very low levels . . . and any intelligence service could effortlessly collect data’.135 Among the most vital issues was that of the cadres: Dimitrov was warned that the mass admission of members had brought some undesirable elements into the BRP(K). He in turn suggested that the party should be open for all who were able and willing to work, and that ‘cult’ status should not be accorded those with a ‘Partisan or prison past’. This was linked to the need to maintain the national-front policy. While the majority of the higher Communist echelons understood the need for ‘placing all work on a broad national basis and not on narrow class positions’,136 the rank-and-file were less perceptive of this approach. In November 1944 Kostov alerted Dimitrov to the fact that ‘many people do not understand why we should play the Fatherland Front’s game, since we could rule on our own’. Separately, pro-Communist leftist elements in the Agrarian Union were plotting to get rid of its more centrist leader, G.M. 137 By December 1944 Dimitrov himself declared that the honeymoon with the FF was over, and saw ‘nothing surprising if fascist elements were to arise and tensions between the allies increase’. He continued to warn against any leftist deviations in the party, and was particularly insistent that Communists should not be perceived as attempting sovietisation. Dimitrov was most eager to convey this message across wider political circles, within and outside Bulgaria. At the end of December 1944, he assured the Bulgarian plenipotentiary in Moscow, Dimitur Mihalchev from Zveno, that neither the Bulgarian Communists nor the Soviet Union planned ‘to Bolshevise’ Bulgaria; the FF was not a temporary measure but would span a whole ‘era’. However, such assurances stood uneasily against the background of ongoing Communist violence. The coup on 9 September had unleashed arbitrary killings of real and perceived enemies of the BRP(K). In mid-October Chervenkov wrote to Dimitrov that ‘traitors, provocateurs, enemies are being punished ruthlessly’ and ‘plainly speaking, a large proportion of the arrested fascists have been killed’. However, he lamented that the Communists had not managed to ‘behead the enemies in the first days’, and even though the annihilation continued the coalition partners were now hindering it. Equally detrimental in this respect was the fact that the ‘inexperienced new young people of the militia do not know how to work’. 138 Dimitrov was fully aware of the lawless terror unleashed by the Communists across the country, though he never mentioned it in his diary. Despite all his advice on tolerance of nonCommunists, he never specifically forbade the use of force to eliminate former or present adversaries, all conveniently branded ‘fascists’. By the end of December 1944, Kostov admitted to Dimitrov ‘much stupidity, much unruliness . . . in the name of the party’. He proposed to ‘exclude several people who were especially guilty of settling personal scores and prosecute them, to show that we are serious in our line’.139

5 ‘THERE IS NO RETURN FROM MOSCOW’, 1944–9

As the victorious Red Army advanced across Europe, Dimitrov’s role as mediator between Stalin and the Communist parties steadily diminished. Many of his foreign associates at the Comintern were propelled to the fore of their national politics, which changed the nature and channelling of their contacts with the Soviet authorities. Long before the end of the war, Dimitrov’s work had effectively become limited to leading the BRP(K) from abroad. The Communist-dominated takeover in Bulgaria in September 1944 was the event for which he had prepared for the whole of his political career, but for over a year afterwards Dimitrov remained in forced and frustrating exile, virtually a hostage to Stalin’s relations with the West. Even when he eventually returned to Sofia, he was never emancipated from Stalin’s direction of Bulgarian and Eastern European affairs.

* * * In October 1944, with the gradual subsidence of arbitrary violence, the Bulgarian government decreed the setting up of a People’s Court. This was the first instance in Europe of putting on trial war-time criminals and those who had collaborated with the Germans. Although it had been part of the FF programme, and backed by all the coalition parties, the Communists assumed a pivotal role in it. Dimitrov displayed keen interest in the constitution and workings of the new court, which placed in the dock the former regents and all wartime cabinet ministers and National Assembly deputies. The trial’s progress was supervised by the Politburo and reported to Dimitrov. After the first sessions, Kostov shared with Dimitrov the view that ‘the judges were too mild, the accused had relaxed’, and so he had ‘to discipline the judges’. Kostov personally instructed the public prosecutors that it would not do to ‘measure who is guilty of what’ but to ‘look out for the slightest thing that would prove the guilt of these bandits’.1 It was the Communist Politburo which decided on ‘the right verdicts’, with the final word belonging to Dimitrov.2 In early February 1945, the principal trial concluded with the execution of some 100 former high-ranking Bulgarian statesmen and civil servants, while many more were imprisoned. Ironically, it was exactly the moment at which Dimitrov submitted his next enquiry to the Soviet Ministry of State Security about the possibilities for the release of Bulgarians still in detention. His reasoning was that the party’s personnel needed replenishment; and he had no qualms about the simultaneous destruction of the nation’s traditional political elite. Subsidiary People’s Courts lasted until April, trying over 11,000 people, of whom 2,618 were sentenced to death and 1,046 executed.3 Considering Bulgaria’s small population and its relatively insignificant role in the hostilities, this accounted for the most severe post-war retribution

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in any ex-Axis country. Privately, the BRP(K) admitted that during what they termed ‘fascist rule’ between 1923 and 1944, out of a total of 1,590 death sentences for political crimes, 199 had actually been carried out. 4 Dimitrov’s sister Magdalena and her daughter-in-law sat on the jury of some of the lower-profile trials.5 Dimitrov regularly forwarded to Stalin summaries of developments in Bulgaria. As the leadership in the country accepted Dimitrov’s guidance, he in turn sought Stalin’s approval for the tactics of the Bulgarian Communists. In January 1945, Stalin shared with a Bulgarian party delegation his view that, good as the FF government was, further opportunities to enlarge the coalition should not be dismissed. He even mused whether it was ‘a mistake to believe that only the Soviet form would lead to Socialism’ and whether ‘the victory of Socialism could come . . . through other political systems, such as democracy and parliamentary or even constitutional monarchy’. 6 This was one of the first occasions on which Stalin revealed to foreigners some of his thoughts on what was to follow the wartime national fronts: while explaining that the Communists would need to tolerate their political allies for the foreseeable future, he also confirmed that Socialism remained the ultimate goal. Immediately picking this up, Dimitrov spoke to his compatriots of the FF not as a temporary partnership but ‘a long-term union of workers, peasants and intelligentsia’ and ‘a new type of democratic government’. It would not eradicate class struggle altogether but would contribute to a relative softening of class contradictions as private property and enterprise were restricted in favour of state interests. In essence, ‘presently, the Communists will not build Socialism . . . not because they have abandoned it’ but because the current internal and international situation did not allow it. Here was a crystal-clear formulation of what would soon be termed ‘people’s democracy’, a stage which had already begun with the Communists’ entry into government. Dimitrov’s brief but articulate definition provided as lucid an explanation of Communist reasoning and actions in the post-war transition period as there would ever be. Absorbing Stalin’s counsel, in the first half of 1945 Dimitrov was engrossed in the rapid deterioration of relations within the ruling coalition in Bulgaria. He condoned the Communists’ continued violence, their infiltration of the other political parties and their relentless acquisition of power at all levels of the state administration. Through these methods the BRP(K) was consolidating its position and putting pressure on the other government parties which were experiencing strong centripetal tendencies. These were most obvious in the BZNS, always a conglomerate of factions. Its most respected leader, G.M. Dimitrov – who had spent the war in the service of British propaganda and special operations – was one of the few active Bulgarian politicians who made no effort to appear pro-Russian, while at the same time commanding an impressive popular following. This instantly juxtaposed him to his Communist namesake: the British journalist Elisabeth Barker reported that the country was too small to hold both Dimitrovs at the same time.7 Already in October 1944, returning from the conclusion of the Bulgarian armistice in Moscow, Nikola Petkov, one of the Agrarian ministers in the FF cabinet, warned that Georgi Dimitrov was intent on eliminating G.M.8 By December 1944, relying on more radical elements and infiltrators, the Communists began demanding that the Agrarians denounce G.M. as pro-Western and anti-FF.

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Within a month, he was ousted from the Agrarian governing body and replaced by Petkov, one of the founders of the FF and at this moment inclined to compromise with the Communists.9 Not only did Dimitrov closely follow the Communist-orchestrated changes in the BZNS, he also instigated and guided them. In January 1945 Dimitrov advised the visiting Kostov that the increasingly troublesome G.M. should not be allowed to go abroad, where he would do much harm, but instead should be arrested. ‘Why is there a people’s militia?’ Dimitrov asked suggestively.10 At the same time the Communists were increasingly intimidating the Agrarians, through a wide arsenal of measures including street clashes and the stirring up of internal power-struggles. The situation on the ground was shaped not so much by Stalin’s theoretical proposition of extending the political composition of the Bulgarian government, as by Dimitrov’s clarifications about the continuation of class struggle, thus clearly revealing the limits of people’s democracy. In January 1945, Dimitrov presented the visiting Bulgarians with his broad plans for the country. He explained that ‘trade links with the Soviet Union should be regarded not only from a purely formal trade perspective’ because ‘we would complete our ambitions when we lean on the mighty Soviet Union, the most democratic country, where the people really rule’. He entertained no doubts that ‘to some extent workers and peasants, craftsmen and intelligentsia all need re-education’. He also used the occasion to point out that there was ‘no one else in the world like Stalin’: ‘History rarely produces such people. Lenin pointed the way but Stalin followed it not only for the happiness of the Russian people but for the happiness of all people.’ 11 Beneath the almost romantic language, the allusion to Stalin’s long-term policy and its reflection in Dimitrov’s own ambitions was hardly obscure. This was also the context in which Dimitrov spoke on a matter most vital to Bulgarian reconstruction: a South Slav federation with Yugoslavia. Confident that the alignment would soon take place, he also expressed a belief that it would blaze a trail towards an even larger union including, Greece, Romania and Albania.12 For the first time Dimitrov mentioned a maximalist vision which harked back to his activity in the Balkan Communist Federation 20 years earlier. Notably, it was omitted from the press releases on the delegation’s work in Moscow, and only emerged in Dimitrov’s personal notes. The latter also differed markedly from the ‘complete agreement’ Dimitrov had reached with Tito on 27 September 1944 in Moscow, whereby only a federation of their two states was envisaged; the broadening of the project might be seen as an attempt by Dimitrov to forestall some of the Yugoslavs’ unforeseen demands on their neighbours. In the first half of November 1944, Tito exerted pressure on the Bulgarian government for speedy negotiations, towards turning Bulgaria into practically another Yugoslav republic, not unlike Croatia or Slovenia. On 19 November, talking to a Yugoslav delegation, Stalin confirmed his agreement in principle, and Dimitrov soon forwarded him a draft for a treaty of federation. 13 However, Dimitrov then seemed to have second thoughts, and on 26 December wrote to Stalin about the need for a long preparatory period. At the next tripartite consultation on 9 January 1945, Stalin

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advised precisely against rushing and giving the impression that Yugoslavia was swallowing Bulgaria; further, he recommended a straightforward treaty of mutual help and friendship.14 As he also clearly postulated that the new state should be founded on parity between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, the Bulgarian concerns were favourably addressed.15 Continuing to brief the ‘Big Friend’ on the matter, on 8 April Dimitrov confided to him the impression that the Yugoslavs were haughty towards their Bulgarian counterparts, and showed signs of being ‘dizzy with success’. A personal meeting the next day confirmed Dimitrov’s conclusion that Tito himself was arrogant and selfconfident, and that he underestimated the regional situation. Then on 12 April Stalin, in his role of arbiter, inclined visibly towards the Bulgarian-sponsored option of federation;16 Dimitrov’s manoeuvring had won the day. His proposal for a wideranging Balkan confederation, meanwhile, can be seen as a tactic intended to counter Tito’s own grand ideas. As the difficulties over the prospective federation temporarily abated, Dimitrov’s attention reverted to the domestic scene, where an offensive against all ‘reactionaries’ was gathering speed. On 23 April G.M. was placed under house arrest, merely for giving instructions to his younger followers. This was a drastic example of the powers of the new militia, which operated under the Communist Minister of the Interior. Some Politburo members advocated seizing the opportunity for eliminating rightist elements across the FF; Dimitrov approved the policy in principle, but preferred to carry it out in stages so that ‘the enemies’ would have no chances of uniting.17 In May 1945, Dimitrov personally directed the handling of the Agrarians. He aimed at splitting them without being seen to do so. He hoped for further cooperation from Petkov, who had so far shown himself as malleable to the Communists, and was sufficiently pro-Soviet; an attempt to ‘neutralise’ him was undertaken after consultation with both the Soviet authorities in Bulgaria and the Soviet Foreign Ministry. On 8 May, in a personal letter, Dimitrov extended his particular regards to Petkov and appealed to him to rise above the pettiness of daily politics so that the unity of the Fatherland Front was preserved, in the name of long-term national interests. Dimitrov’s message was reinforced by high-ranking Soviet military commanders who met Petkov shortly afterwards.18 Transparent and heavy-handed, Dimitrov’s approach backfired. The hitherto vacillating Petkov refused to tolerate further Communist interference in the BZNS, and leant towards independent Agrarian participation in the looming elections. The crisis was aggravated when on 24 May G.M. escaped from his house arrest and found shelter with the US political representative. The event turned into a test case of the extent to which the Communists could manipulate the Agrarian Union, where the radical leftists were pressing Petkov to identify himself firmly with the FF. Moreover, the BRP(K) could only be encouraged by the fact that the Western Allies, although fully aware of the Communist-instigated breaches of the provisions for democracy in the terms of the Bulgarian armistice, could offer the Agrarians little practical support. Anxious that Petkov could attract various anti-Communists, Dimitrov was quick to instruct the BRP(K) activists pre-emptively to attribute the rift to Petkov’s

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obstructionist attitudes. More importantly, Petkov should be isolated from the circle of the original FF leaders. Therefore Dimitrov advised that the Communists should draw closer to Zveno, the smaller, elitist partner in the coalition. On 18 June 1945 in an almost literal repetition of the earlier statements addressed to Petkov, Kostov blatantly flattered Prime Minister Georgiev, and the Minister of War, Damian Velchev, appealing to them in the name of the preservation of the FF. Not too subtly, the two were also reminded of the need for good relations with the Soviets. But the high point of the conversation was the assertion that there were no plans for sovietising Bulgaria. Ironically, the Zveno ministers’ relief at this declaration resulted in their instant agreement to invite Soviet instructors for the army. Later, Kostov similarly persuaded another Zveno figure, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Petko Stainov, to cooperate with the Communists by guaranteeing him a place in any reconstructed cabinet. This political offensive was continued by Dimitrov, who spoke extensively with Velchev at the end of June 1945 during an official Bulgarian visit to Moscow for the celebration of victory in Europe. General Biryuzov, the Soviet commander in Bulgaria, also took part in some of the talks.19 On 9 July, Dimitrov decided that Petkov’s open stance against the BRP(K) required immediate expulsion from the cabinet. Dimitrov ‘sent directives on how a quick and decisive change should be carried out in the government and how to present it to the people’. However, he had to backtrack the very next day – upon hearing of the plan Stalin labelled it ‘sectarian’, a powerful accusation. Stalin also repeated his advice from the previous January, for more flexibility. Dimitrov informed the CC of the reversal, stating plainly that ‘the current circumstances’ were ‘inappropriate’ for the removal of the Agrarians from their ministerial posts.20 And while the advice was dutifully followed, Dimitrov was aware that a number of leading Communists in Bulgaria were far less tolerant and flexible than the ‘Big Friend’ expected. 21 This was indeed the greatest challenge he was facing – to mediate between the Soviet Union and the Bulgarian Communists, who were ideological and political allies but were governed by different motives. The local revolutionaries were eager to make the most of the opportunities thrown up by the ending of the war, especially the unprecedented Soviet protection. This was Dimitrov’s predisposition too. Stalin, however, attentive to the advantages of good relations with the Western Allies, saw long-term benefit in much less abrupt changes in his sphere of influence. Dimitrov had no original answer to this dilemma, but his instincts and habits drove him on most occasions to retreat behind Stalin’s recommendations. In the spring of 1945, having commissioned a bust of Stalin, the Bulgarian Politburo also approved a project for a 15-foot statue of Dimitrov. The figure – in frock-coat and carrying a scroll – was unveiled as part of the First of May celebrations; the choice of a site for it – at the entrance to the Royal Palace in central Sofia – was an ostentatious sign of the Communists’ confidence and ambition. As elections approached, many portraits of Dimitrov adorned offices and public buildings in the capital and across the country.22 No other contemporary politician was accorded similar honour, as only images of national heroes and occasionally the ‘Big Three’ Allied leaders were displayed in public. Yet, such recognition was barely noticed by

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Dimitrov, extremely sensitive to status symbols though he normally was. Instead, he was growing noticeably irritable with his co-partisans. In one of his missives he ‘snapped’ at Kostov who had taken an inappropriate high tone regarding a query. He also reprimanded his lieutenants in Bulgaria for overlooking the omission of a whole paragraph of one of his articles broadcast on Bulgarian radio. 23 Clearly, by the summer of 1945 Dimitrov’s patience was wearing thin with the zig-zags of coalition politics and with Tito’s pressure on the Bulgarian Communists. While younger, inspired leaders were rebuilding the BRP(K), shaping the country and most recently campaigning in the first post-war general elections, Dimitrov with all his experience and prestige was often reduced to the role of a spectator. Even though the internal Communists repeatedly declared an urgent need for his presence in the country, Stalin persisted that the Allies should not be given one more reason to fear the sovietisation of Bulgaria. As late as 7 August, less than three weeks before the scheduled Bulgarian elections, Stalin questioned the prudence of Dimitrov’s return to his homeland and his standing for a seat as a deputy while still a member of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. It was only after a vigorous plea by Dimitrov that the reverse course was taken: he was allowed to step down from the Soviet legislature and, as a matter of urgency, released from Soviet citizenship, which he judged ‘more worth doing in view of the future perspectives’. The formalities were completed virtually on the eve of the Bulgarian vote and even so, the question of his eligibility for a Bulgarian election remained, since he had registered as a candidate while still a Soviet citizen. Meanwhile, Stalin and Molotov preferred Dimitrov to continue keeping a low profile, and not yet to address the Bulgarian electorate.24 In the meantime, Petkov, in his capacity of leader of the newly-formed Opposition, had called for postponement of the elections due to consistent Communist abuses of democratic freedoms and human rights. As the British and US diplomats in Sofia followed up with demands to discuss the political situation with General Biryuzov, on 22 August Foreign Minister Stainov, in a surprise move, told a press conference that if the Allied Control Commission which implemented the armistice regime in Bulgaria so requested, the Bulgarian government would postpone the elections. 25 That day Stainov visited the Soviet Mission twice, first to relay a warning that the USA and Britain were on the verge of pulling their political representatives out of Bulgaria, as a sanction for the Communists’ Soviet backed-behaviour. In the evening, Stainov talked with the Soviet political adviser, Stepan Kirsanov.26 As the timing and nature of these meetings are not clear, it is difficult to speculate whether the Soviet Mission played a role in Stainov’s announcement and the subsequent events. At midnight on 23 August, at a full meeting of the ACC, the British and US members insisted on a postponement of the elections until the government had restored freedom of speech and of assembly, and guaranteed free and secret balloting. This was countered by Kirsanov, who tried to prevent a genuine discussion with a four-hour exposé going over each article of the Electoral Law and praising it as a model of democracy. Even so, late at night on 24 August, at another tripartite meeting the Russians unexpectedly agreed to the postponement of the elections, less than 48 hours before their scheduled start and possibly directly instructed by Stalin.27

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The Bulgarian Communists were truly outraged – as much by the postponement itself as by the fact that the situation had slipped out of their hands in a matter of hours. It would appear that neither the Foreign Minister nor the Russian authorities in Sofia consulted the Communist leaders before the fateful decision. In Moscow, Dimitrov was equally appalled at the BRP(K)’s loss of control over events. Significantly, he received the information of Stainov’s ‘scandalous’ behaviour only the following day, and recorded the outcome of the high political drama with a two-day delay. He could only fume impotently at the ‘disgrace’, which must have seemed all the more shocking since only days earlier the Communists had held entirely satisfactory conversations with the Zveno leaders.28 Nevertheless, Dimitrov rallied quickly, directing the Communists in Sofia to handle the situation delicately. But the emergency called for higher-level intervention and he was shortly called to the Kremlin. There a conference with Stalin was also joined by the speedily-summoned Kostov and Chervenkov, as well as by Kolarov, who was now permitted to depart for Bulgaria, as Stalin was eager to boost the Communists’ morale; Dimitrov would follow shortly. The Soviet government also made instant concessions on matters about which the Bulgarians had been politely enquiring for some time, such as alleviating the financial burden resulting from the occupying Red Army and help for agriculture. Crucially, however, Stalin instructed Biryuzov that there should be no further compromises with the Opposition; he also reassured the Bulgarian Communists that they would remain in overall control of Bulgarian affairs. But this firmness was to be accompanied by acceptance of the need to maintain good relations with Britain and the USA and, for the time being, restraint from ‘shout[ing] too much about eternal friendship with the Soviet Union’. Somewhat incongruously, Stalin called for tolerance towards the Opposition, as this could advance the democratic credentials of the Bulgarian government.29 The spirit of Stalin’s remarks was revealed not much later, as Kolarov was more than once overheard to say that his task in Bulgaria was to make sure that the Soviet government’s apparent concessions did not amount to much.30 Soon after the postponement of the elections Dimitrov began transferring to his deputies his main responsibilities at the Department for International Information. However, his office was to remain intact for the time being. News of his imminent departure spread quickly, and by 6 September Rákosi wrote from Budapest of his joy that Dimitrov would be nearer so that ‘our affairs would go even better’. 31 Indeed, in early September 1945 Dimitrov was consulted about the affairs of several other Communist parties in Eastern Europe, including the Romanian, Polish and Albanian. Although focused on Bulgaria, he had to remain for a while longer in the Soviet capital to hear first-hand the Soviet leaders’ assessment of the London Council of Foreign Ministers. Dimitrov wrote to Kolarov that it would be advantageous to talk to the ‘Big Friend’ before returning to Bulgaria ‘with clearer ideas about the options and perspectives of our Bulgarian policy’.32 By mid-October Dimitrov had heard from Stalin and Molotov that no further policy changes were required in Bulgaria. Relaying the message to Sofia, he confirmed that no political activity outside the FF would be tolerated. In preparing to return to his country, Dimitrov consulted with Merkulov; in Sofia, Soviet security specialists

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approved the residence selected in the suburb of Knyazhevo, but rejected the designated office in the CC building. They also made sure all technical equipment was in place, and vetted all Bulgarian staff. A private secretary, a typist and various house staff were carefully chosen and half a dozen domestic helpers were sent in advance from Moscow. The Soviet ‘friends’ insisted on heightened protection and proposed that Dimitrov’s Soviet guards should be suitably disguised, so as not to cause political difficulties. At Stalin’s personal behest, he was also supplied with a direct highfrequency line to Moscow. A special Russian operative, Mirov, was appointed to deal with ‘international affairs and also to keep the link with the VKP(B)’.33 The NKVD anticipated and supervised the minutiae of Dimitrov’s routine in Bulgaria, and thus to a great extent gained control over the leader himself; Soviet practices continued to be imported into the work and private lives of Bulgaria’s other political leaders. Amid all the hectic preparations, only a handful of top Communists were alerted to Dimitrov’s arrival in Bulgaria. This ‘necessary incognito’ was partly dictated by the belief it would increase the political effect, and partly by the obsession with security. But it was more than ironic that the man who had fled the country after a fiasco uprising should now make a surreptitious return. Kostov wondered: ‘What kind of impression would your return make? Nobody suspects you are coming before the elections, and nobody factors it into their calculations.’ He believed Dimitrov’s appearance would bring the Communists much-needed ‘experience, brains and political capital’, while for all those uncertain elements in the FF it would be a point of ‘no return’.34 On 3 November 1945 Dimitrov wrote Stalin a letter of gratitude for the guidance extended to him through the years, including a request to ‘be able in future to benefit from your valuable advice again’. Dimitrov touched down on Bulgarian soil at four o’clock in the afternoon on 4 November 1945. He was greeted at the airport by General Biryuzov, and in the evening met with the local BRP(K) triumvirate of Kostov, Chervenkov and Yugov. The following day he chaired a meeting of the Communist Politburo where he sensed a certain confusion and indecision regarding the elections. Accordingly, he decided that he should use the first opportunity for a morale-boosting public speech.35 It was symbolic that Dimitrov’s first official appearance in Bulgaria was on a purely Soviet occasion, a celebration of the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, where he spoke from the stage of the National Theatre. The claim in his diary that it was an improvised speech responding to the demands of the audience is hardly plausible, in view not only of the previous day’s entry but also because he was acutely aware that he would be addressing fellow Bulgarians on Bulgarian soil for the first time after more than 22 years abroad. All political observers, domestic and international, understood the magnitude of the moment: the optimists believed that Dimitrov would appeal for political calm and national conciliation, in tune with the Soviet line for moderation and in favour of people’s democracy. Instead, by his own admission, he ‘frankly hit . . . at the intrigues of the Opposition’. Foreign journalists reported that his speech was a real shock, ‘hotly personal and even egotistic’, as he expressed his rage that returning from exile he had to put up with ‘the filthy rags of the Opposition newspapers’.

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Evidently, Dimitrov had not come bearing forgiveness and intending concessions. The fragile old man, who did not even smile or wave at the crowd chanting his name, seemed full of bitterness and prejudice and quickly put to rest any hopes for a new beginning after a year of Communist excesses. The Communists were still enraptured by his words and reported instant positive effects, namely an increase of confidence among the ranks of the ruling coalition and of hesitation in the Opposition.36 The following weeks were full of emotion and increasingly busy. Dimitrov took his wife to his parents’ house, and paid his respects at the graves of his father, brother and the Communist party founders Blagoev and Kirkov. He took charge of the workings of the Politburo, and began a round of consultations with individual Communist activists, Government ministers and the Regent Pavlov, as well as several prominent Zveno and Agrarian figures, all eager to update him on developments in their organisations. Crucially, there seemed to emerge an excellent understanding with the Prime Minister. The latter even reported to the Communists his conversation with Mark Etheridge, the personal envoy of US President Truman recently dispatched to make an independent assessment of the situation in Bulgaria and Romania; Dimitrov immediately forwarded the information thus gleaned to Molotov. Dimitrov himself attended various diplomatic functions, his most significant international meeting also being with Etheridge. Dimitrov’s record of the encounter was rather bland, pointing out his warning that the Communists would accept no further delays and adjustments to the forthcoming poll; he also found the American surprisingly forthcoming on the shortcomings of the Opposition.37 For his part, the US envoy noted that Dimitrov tried to reassure him that the Communists had no intention of monopolising power and would continue to rule as part of the FF alliance. However, the overall impression of the US delegation was that any pre-electoral concessions by the regime would be purely cosmetic, and after winning at the polls, the Communists would really be preparing to crush the Opposition.38 In the campaign for the Bulgarian parliamentary elections of 18 November 1945, the Communists engaged in intimidation of their opponents, subversion and various other techniques they had perfected over the preceding year. Therefore the Opposition, whose figurehead Petkov had become but which also included Social Democrats who had split from the FF, declared a boycott and called for the casting of blank ballots. A careful reading of the official results – 85.2 per cent turnout, of which 88.3 per cent voted for the FF – suggests that up to a quarter of the electorate indicated support for the non-FF forces. Foreign diplomats reported that the actual results of the ruling coalition were much worse; Dimitrov was rumoured to have ‘upbraided’ local Communist leaders, and he himself to have been reprimanded for misleading the Soviets.39 There is no solid evidence for this, and Dimitrov invariably maintained that the FF had won a brilliant victory. Ten days after the elections, a special courier brought Dimitrov a medal for ‘Noble Labour during the Patriotic War 1941–1945’ awarded him by the Supreme Soviet.40 Surely this signalled Soviet satisfaction with the conduct of Bulgarian affairs. After the elections Dimitrov’s routine remained busy, if a little less stressful. As the leader of the most powerful party he sought to coordinate the policy of the winning coalition in anticipation of the opening of the National Assembly. The talks were largely

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token, as the number of deputies and cabinet posts for each party had already been fixed. Dimitrov noted that in this respect complete accord existed with the FF Agrarians, Social Democrats and Zveno. These parties had changed profoundly in the course of the previous year, ridding themselves of those disillusioned with the Communists and retaining only the most leftist, pro-Soviet elements. Additionally, loyal Communists held key political and administrative positions. Even so, Dimitrov insisted on personally overseeing lowgrade tasks such as drafting a public appeal by the FF or instructing the delegates to an international women’s conference.41 Dimitrov’s official functions took him from a dinner with the Head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church to a Bulgaria–Russia football match. According to his private secretaries he demonstrated keen interest in the standard of living and the general mood of ordinary people. He was acutely sensitive to criticisms of the BRP(K) or the government, and particularly insisted on being alerted of any instances of hostile attitude, whether towards him personally or of more general political character. He adamantly ruled that all messages should be replied to, and often made gestures of good will towards those who sought his protection. Dimitrov clearly basked in the popularity he enjoyed among all generations of Communists; he was especially pleased to receive and be entertained by members of the so-called ‘September Children’, the Communist organisation for primary school children modelled on its Soviet counterpart.42 Nonetheless, his aides maintained that Dimitrov was spartan in his private life and had simple tastes: when his new residence was equipped with an Olympic-size swimming pool, he apparently never used it, as a sign of his disapproval of the excess.43 Memoirs and contemporary documents contribute to a distinctly split image of Dimitrov. To his family and the party faithful he appeared a wise and benevolent father, who could empathise with the man in the street. For those devoid of revolutionary romanticism, he was the puppet of Moscow, surrounded by special bodyguards and quick to acquire the luxuries of power such as a home cinema and a shiny limousine. The hastily-built fence which screened off his residence from the public was known by a particularly derogatory nickname. Worst of all, his drinking was difficult to disguise and provoked constant gossip. Dimitrov’s most pressing concern was Bulgaria’s uncertain international position. Soviet control remained a defining feature: the Soviet High Command issued orders banning Opposition newspapers, and even blocking plays from the stage of the National Theatre. A growing number of Soviet advisors were installed in most branches of government, while political activists and civil servants received Soviet training.44 While all this was welcomed as perfectly normal by Dimitrov, he soon witnessed another twist in the Soviet approach to Bulgaria. Etheridge’s mission was extended to Moscow, where he expressed US disquiet at the Bulgarian Communists’ disregard for the basic rules of democracy. Meanwhile, Britain and the USA stood by their earlier warning not to recognise a government resulting from corrupt elections; nonetheless they also looked for a way out of a stalemate in Bulgaria which highlighted their own inability to influence the situation.

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On 23 December 1945 Stalin sent Dimitrov a cipher relaying an interview with the US Ambassador to Russia. Stalin, who had ruled out of the question any discussion of the Bulgarian post-election government, still conceded that the moment was opportune for political concessions. Thus he suggested to Dimitrov that the Bulgarian government could include one or two Opposition figures, with a view to facilitating international recognition. However, Stalin clarified that he did not envisage Petkov but rather someone ‘not too popular’ to be given ‘some insignificant ministry’. Evidently, the Soviet leader considered the Bulgarian Communists sufficiently in charge of the situation so that minor adjustments would not tip the overall political balance but might bring the double advantage of weakening the Opposition and partially satisfying the West.45 Dimitrov instantly summoned leading Communists for an exchange of views, in a meeting joined by the Prime Minister, Georgiev: Stalin’s suggestion was adopted. Three days later, in Moscow, the Council of Foreign Ministers decided that on behalf of the ‘Big Three’ Allies the Soviet Union would advise the Bulgarian government to admit two loyal and representative members of the Opposition. Dimitrov hastened to reassure the Politburo that the so-called ‘Moscow communiqué’ merely gave ‘Britain and the USA a chance to save their faces’ and amounted to Western recognition of the November elections, the resultant National Assembly and the existing Bulgarian government.46 Such misrepresentation echoed Stalin’s boasting that he had been able to limit ‘the demands of the Anglo-Americans’ and in some cases discard them altogether. 47 It was also in tune with the deliberately conciliatory public pronouncements of the more enlightened Communist leaders. At the Ninth Plenum of the CC on 12 December 1945, Kostov had explained that ‘because of internal as well as international considerations’ the Communist party was interested in co-operation with ‘the democratic part of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois intellectuals’.48 This did not preclude the Communists from warning the Opposition that unless it reunited with the FF, it would be regarded as ‘a reactionary adversary fascist force’, which would be ‘ruthlessly . . . destroyed’.49 Similar dual thinking was reflected in all attempts to comply with the Moscow decision. In it Dimitrov detected a welcome possibility of splitting his opponents even further: he assumed there would be a number of ministerial hopefuls from whom the Communists would be able to hand-pick the new additions to the cabinet.50 But both Petkov and Kosta Lulchev, the leader of those Social Democrats who had left the FF, refused to nominate potential government members unconditionally, and repeated their pre-electoral position. This unexpected complication speedily sent Georgiev, Stainov and Yugov to Moscow. It is of monumental significance that the former two, even though non-Communists, were admitted to such sensitive consultations with Stalin. He in turn seemed at particular pains to assure the Bulgarians that Soviet Russia had their interests at heart and pledged lasting protection. Confiding that he had already deflected harmful Western demands on Bulgaria, he exacted ‘certainty’ that Bulgaria would never become the instrument of anti-Soviet ‘aggression’. As to the current Bulgarian stalemate, Stalin asserted that nothing more than the inclusion in the government of two Opposition representatives was required. He even reprimanded the Bulgarian ministers for entering into negotiations which made Petkov and Lulchev ‘think that you need them when in fact you don't need them at all’.51 Moreover, to show that he meant business, Stalin

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immediately dispatched Vyshinsky – the Soviet Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs, known for installing a pro-Soviet government in Latvia several years earlier – to Sofia. However, Stalin explained to the visiting Bulgarian statesmen that in practice Vyshinsky ‘had no mission’ apart from reiterating once again the content of the Moscow communiqué to the Bulgarian Opposition leaders.52 Staged in the preferred nocturnal style of the Moscow elite, Vyshinsky’s trip ended in utter failure, as both Lulchev and Petkov rejected the undisguised threats and demands to back the government without any guarantee of concessions. Vyshinsky’s unyielding attitude of simply seeking two nominees to join the government meant that after two days in Sofia, he left empty-handed.53 During the fortnight of heightened expectations brought by the Moscow decision, Dimitrov to an extent stayed in the shadows of both the domestic negotiations and the diplomatic exchanges. Certainly, he had communicated with Stalin and conferred with Vyshinsky in Sofia. Yet, rather conspicuously at such a critical juncture, he did not lend his personal authority to the search for compromise and stayed clear of contacts with the Opposition. In fact, after his resettlement in Bulgaria, Dimitrov had not faced any of his political or ideological adversaries. Such absence of positive action on his part should not be overlooked, especially in the context of his private and public statements to the effect that the Moscow communiqué should be used to demoralise the Opposition: ‘If they entered the government they should be held as hostages, if they didn’t . . . we should throw them out.’ 54 A little later Dimitrov also reminded the CC that: ‘The people’s militia should not remain passive . . . if necessary even Petkov would be arrested and anyone can scream about it.’55 Dimitrov’s hard-line attitude to domestic politics was accompanied by an activist approach in regional matters, where he exercised a kind of personal diplomacy. His links with the Greek Communists were particularly interesting, if somewhat obscure. Upon his return to Bulgaria Dimitrov took over from Kostov the job of communicating and occasionally transferring money to the Greek Communist Party (KKE), the Kremlin being the ultimate source of both the advice and the funds. Links with the southern comrades were rather sporadic and marred by unresolved issues, notably the status of Macedonia and border alterations.56 The BRP(K) believed itself to have a vested interest in revolutionary developments in Greece. Yet, Dimitrov’s attitude to the chronic civil war there was firmly grounded in his adherence to Soviet policy. In early February 1946, he passed on Stalin’s advice that the KKE should not prepare an uprising but should instead ‘organise self-defence accompanied with political mobilisation of the masses’.57 The communication was brief and should not be over-interpreted; but it was consistent with Stalin’s preference for patience and moderation on the part of Communists across Europe, until conditions were more auspicious. The BRP(K)’s relationship with the Yugoslav Communists was more firmly established, and took place on an entirely different level: a wider group of CC members were involved, all taking their cue from Dimitrov. Shortly after his repatriation, Dimitrov had resumed his communication with Tito on the question of a federation. He conceded that the initiative should belong to the Yugoslavs, but be carried out

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under Soviet supervision. The vision arrived at during these private exchanges was repeated in public soon after the dust had settled on the Moscow communiqué. In early February 1946, speaking at the Military High School Dimitrov confidently proclaimed: The Bulgarians have a historic task to carry out . . . on behalf of all Balkan people. We must be able to help the Balkan people and the South Slavs to fulfil their progressive role . . . Our national interest . . . is an outlet on the Aegean Sea.58

Such an outspoken statement hardly demonstrated moderation in either domestic or international terms. Indeed, it contributed to growing Western apprehension about Soviet aggressiveness in the eastern Mediterranean, an impression confirmed by the Turkish crisis later in the year,59 and clearly boded ill for the democratisation of Bulgarian politics, on which the Western powers, however reluctantly and inconsistently, continued to insist. At the same time, in the second week of March 1946, Petkov had again been approached by the Communists, themselves urged by the Soviets to work out some modus vivendi.60 However, the Bulgarian Communists again pushed for nothing but a literal implementation of the Moscow communiqué. Dimitrov was more interested in the disposition of forces inside the FF. His views and actions in this period are well-demonstrated by a conversation in the first week of March 1946 with those Social Democrats who had remained within the FF. Dimitrov presented himself as tolerant and explained that even though capable of taking power unilaterally, the Communists preferred ‘to unite the working class in support of Socialism’. The means to do so included merging the Social Democrats with the Communists, which would bring the former not only long-term political advantages but also better access to second- and third-rank administrative and managerial positions; specific posts at the Pernik mines and the Agrarian Bank were mentioned. But Dimitrov also gave an explicit warning that the Communists would not tolerate ‘competition among the working class’, in other words they would never relinquish control over the ruling coalition.61 One test case Dimitrov mentioned in his talk with the Social Democrats was their attitude to Krustyu Pastuhov, one of their well-known leaders who had been arrested, with Dimitrov’s open approval. Having left the FF, Pastuhov had helped establish the rival BRSDP and set up the Opposition, thus becoming a natural target for Communist persecution. That he had also, for over 30 years, been one of Dimitrov’s longest-standing political foes most likely aggravated his situation. Although the arrest was officially justified by Pastuhov’s allegedly anti-Soviet press writings, it had not been explicitly coordinated with the Soviet authorities in Bulgaria. The latter deemed this a serious lapse, precipitating an official demand by Vyshinsky for a full report on the case.62 Ironically, attempting to eliminate a personal enemy, Dimitrov was reprimanded for failing to follow the established avenues of information and subordination to the Soviets. Only two days later and without notice, on 15 March Moscow called for a reshuffling of the Bulgarian government. For 18 months the Soviets’ overt advice for

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political compromises had co-existed with their de facto sanction of the Bulgarian Communists’ brutality. Now Molotov prescribed greater and undisguised Communist dominance over the Bulgarian government. Detailing the required changes in both personnel and structure, he unequivocally withdrew Soviet confidence from the Foreign Minister, Stainov: interestingly, it had been the latter who had alerted the Soviet representatives to the public’s negative view of Pastuhov’s arrest. Dimitrov’s speedy reply to Molotov’s directive failed to meet with complete satisfaction; it added to the recent string of minor mutual irritations and miscommunications in that it failed to address one Soviet point, that of the removal of the non-Communist Finance Minister. Within hours Molotov replied to Dimitrov, highlighting the omission and interpreting it as inappropriate ‘modesty’ which compared unfavourably with the Yugoslavs’ ‘more appropriate and forceful’ actions. This obviously played on the unspoken rivalry between the two neighbouring Communist parties.63 The abrupt criticism stemmed not from Dimitrov’s unwillingness to follow the Soviets’ steering but from Stalin’s embarking on a subtle alteration of policy. Up to now, the Soviet leader had recommended to his Bulgarian disciples a dual track, of apparent cooperation with non-Communists forces and constant Communist consolidation of power. The combination, not at all unique to Bulgaria, was meant to smooth post-war reconstruction and limit damage to the fading Grand Alliance – which had been useful, if not entirely successful. Now Stalin reorientated to a less complicated but more confrontational approach, as illustrated by two simultaneous Soviet gestures: when at the end of March 1946, in a distant echo of the Moscow decisions, Prime Minister Georgiev unexpectedly indicated that ministerial posts might be available to the Agrarians, he received a lightning visit from Biryuzov and Kirsanov, who labelled the idea outdated and unauthorised – and so unceremoniously vetoed it. 64 The significance of this act was reinforced by the ‘Big Friend’, who in clear and uninhibited language advised the Bulgarian CC to ‘ignore totally’ and ‘suffocate skilfully’ the Opposition.65 If this was a metaphor, it was lost on the Bulgarian Communists who implemented it literally. Dimitrov had already proposed that the Interior Minister ‘should take . . . the most severe political, administrative and legal measures’ against the Opposition.66 He defended all Communist violence since 1944 with vigour and without remorse. When in mid-April 1946 a visiting British Member of Parliament, John Mack, raised the issue of the thousands rumoured to be in prison, Dimitrov admitted the truth of this, claiming that ‘the people’s vengeance’ had been legitimately unleashed and even that many ‘who now oppose our government would not be alive’ if it were not for measures taken by the FF, so ‘they should be thankful’. He further claimed that the country was full of ‘never-do-wells, idlers and degenerate followers of Western fashions’ who were also foreign spies, and pointedly asked whether these people ‘should be left sitting pretty or sent to work’.67 Nevertheless, Dimitrov hoped that the BRP(K) would not rule simply by force. On 19 April he counselled Communist deputies

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to make an effort to talk to the ordinary workers, to approach the simple peasants and craftsmen and get to understand their views on the policy of the government, the conduct of the party, but also to hear their comments on the mayor, the local administration, the village militia.

Dimitrov was convinced that some people backed the Opposition due to misconceptions or petty personal reasons, but would return to the FF after a simple talk and if the Communists addressed everyday grievances. Of course, ‘strict measures should be taken against the malicious Opposition’.68 This uncompromising view of the non-Communists as either ill-advised or malevolent clearly exposes the prejudices and limitations of Dimitrov’s guiding political philosophy. Political expediency accounted for seemingly incoherent actions, such as reassuring the Bulgarian Church that it would be allowed to play its role in a society where repression of all non-Communists was increasing. At the end of May 1946, the Communist who had long disowned his birth religion found it appropriate to avow his positive attitude to Christianity. Speaking to a group of Orthodox priests, he employed a classic carrot-and-stick approach, pledging financial and material security for the religious institution but warning that the pulpit should not be used for ‘reactionary propaganda’. The Church was not required to abstain from politics but to show that it supported the new regime. A fitting example was seen in the Russian Patriarch, who had shown himself politically astute and adaptive.69 Dimitrov demonstrated the meaning of his words on 27 May at the celebrations of one of the most revered Bulgarian martyrs, St Ivan of Rila, as he conspicuously walked out of the service when blessings were pronounced for the child-King and the Queen Mother. He then addressed the crowd outside, speaking of ‘a republican Church’.70 In another case of apparently incongruent behaviour, on 3 September 1946 Dimitrov requested Stalin to review the cases of 29 Bulgarians incarcerated during the Purge, including for the first time that of his Leipzig co-accused, Blagoy Popov. Dimitrov justified this step by suggesting that these people would render the Bulgarian party an indispensable service. If a moral contradiction seems to exist between Dimitrov’s attempt to free political prisoners from the Soviet gulags and his actions in unleashing political persecution in Bulgaria, it is only superficial. Dimitrov had little problem reconciling benevolence towards formerly ostracised Communists and brutality towards active anti-Communists. The criteria were pragmatism and political loyalty, not ethical values or philosophical principles. In May–June 1946, there was a distinct feeling in Bulgarian political circles of a gathering political storm. The Communists contended that their enemies were preparing provocations, not unrelated to the upsurge of what they saw as ‘AngloAmerican’ imperialist activity in Greece, where the civil war had resumed. Largely, this was a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the Politburo first passed a resolution calling for firm handling of any actions which went against the Communist interests, and then, expecting such actions, pushed for the adoption of repressive laws. The Opposition’s response of protest rallies and press publications was taken by the Communists as evidence of hostility and disloyalty, and promptly used by the Communist-controlled

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militia and courts of justice to maltreat and intern real or imagined opponents of the regime.71 Dimitrov’s responsibility for the inception and implementation of this policy is well-documented; and it was hardly coincidental that the political violence was stepped up after a short visit he made to Moscow on 5–7 June. In the Soviet capital he heard reports by Bulgarian émigrés and was briefed by the acting head of the DII. He spoke at length with Otto Kuusinen, discussing the possibility of setting up an ideological centre for Communist parties in Paris. It is not clear whether this expressed Dimitrov’s individual preference for recreating an international Communist organisation, or was only related to the desire of the Bulgarian Communists to advocate a positive image of the FF regime abroad. Dimitrov’s most important meeting occurred at one of Stalin’s familiar midnight feasts. A long conversation centred on the Bulgarian Communists’ tactics towards their FF partners, ‘and particularly towards Velchev’, the War Minister from Zveno. The Soviet leaders voiced new criticisms of the Bulgarians’ ‘lack of determination’ and advised the adoption of a harder line irrespective of the likely protests from Britain and the USA. As if not fully confident of Dimitrov’s ability to handle the situation firmly enough, on 18 June General Biryuzov, who had been given an official farewell barely six weeks earlier, was posted back to Bulgaria. He would lend an expert hand with purging the Bulgarian army and even the War Minister.72 His reappearance also led to a concentration of occupying Soviet troops on the Turkish border and to fortification of the Greek border.73 A succession of political trials in the second half of 1946 began with the sentencing to death in absentia of G.M. Dimitrov, for treason. Further, Social Democrat leaders like Pastuhov and Lulchev, Agrarians like Assen Stamboliyski, son of the first Agrarian prime minister, were convicted, as were the popular journalist-critics of the regime, Tsveti Ivanov and Trifon Kunev. Simultaneously, the Interior Minister imposed bans of different lengths on the Opposition newspapers – primarily for publishing what the Politburo chose to interpret as anti-Soviet and anti-Yugoslav articles. Members of the VMRO and of a secret military organisation, Tsar Krum, whose existence outside the confessions of the accused is questionable, were also found guilty of a range of ‘terrorist activities’ and ‘anti-government conspiracies’. All these politically-motivated judicial acts were hailed by Dimitrov as ‘FF legality’ at work. On 3 August 1946, he sent a special circular to local Communist organisations calling for discipline and coolheadedness in dealings with the Opposition, and for curbing the trend of individual Communists taking the law in their own hands. Well aware of the ongoing violence across the country, at a CC Plenum the following week Dimitrov again pleaded for an end to ‘the law of the fist’.74 The divergence between Dimitrov’s cautions and the extreme actions of lower ranks testifies to the continuing, endemic radicalism of the BRP(K). More importantly, the party leadership took no serious measures to stop the arbitrary terror, and largely tolerated it because in the long term it clearly benefited the Communist project. During his June visit to the Kremlin Dimitrov, together with Kostov and Kolarov, conferred in ‘a warm and friendly atmosphere’ with Tito and some of his associates, such as Alexander Ranković, on relations between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Briefed on

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the topic, Stalin advised that the two neighbours should not take formal steps towards a union before the peace treaty with Bulgaria was officially concluded. Meanwhile, he urged the ‘closest cooperation’ between the two countries’ foreign ministries, and sanctioned joint commissions of their Communist parties to look into the difficult matter of Macedonia and the so-called ‘western borderlands’. The Bulgarians were looking to reincorporate the latter on the basis of the majority of ethnic Bulgarians living there, implicitly treating this as compensation for agreeing in principle that the Bulgarian part of Macedonia should join the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. Believing that the territorial and ethnic issues should be resolved as a whole, the Bulgarians reported to Stalin serious difficulties on the ground, the worst of which was the attempt to enhance the Macedonian identity of the inhabitants of the Pirin region. For that purpose, emissaries from Yugoslav Macedonia had been admitted there, but had behaved aggressively and undermined the authority of the Bulgarian Communists. Stalin, however, insisted that Bulgarian Macedonia should be given cultural autonomy, in preparation for the transformation of the whole region into a single Bulgarian– Yugoslav state. A clue to Stalin’s thinking was his mention of the unexpected ‘discovery of a Belorussian nation’ within the Soviet Union. Again, Stalin challenged Dimitrov to follow the example of Tito in domestic affairs. The Yugoslavs were able to capitalise on this momentary preference, soon forwarding harsh economic demands on Bulgaria and pointedly voting against Bulgaria’s interests at the Paris peace talks. Dimitrov conceded that the Macedonians were a separate people, only feebly pointing out in private that Marxist theory differentiated between ‘people’ and ‘nation’. Such subtlety went unnoticed, as he publicly and continually confirmed that all Macedonians should be united in the eponymous Yugoslav republic. This was the principle adopted by the Tenth Plenum of the CC on 9–10 August 1946, when the BRP(K) leaders also resolved to support the policy, already in progress, of ‘macedonianising’ the inhabitants of Macedonia. In addition to setting up Macedonian-language libraries and schools, a census was carried out in December 1946 in which the Communist authorities forcibly registered the population as Macedonian rather than Bulgarian.75 In the last quarter of 1946, Dimitrov spent a good deal of time back in Moscow – mostly for medical reasons. The Dimitrovs had kept both their Moscow flat and the countryside villa. Rosa in particular had missed Soviet ways, and gladly embraced the enjoyable habits of her previous lifestyle; Dimitrov decided ‘to leave Rosa’s relatives [in the USSR] for another year’.76 During his next sojourn in Moscow, on 2 September 1946, Dimitrov had another serious conversation with Stalin and Molotov, the two boasting that they had categorically rejected a US initiative for fresh negotiations between the Bulgarian government and Opposition. Dimitrov’s query as to whether this might not precipitate a Western refusal to conclude peace with Bulgaria was met with assurances that the USA and Britain would not run the risk of the Soviets reciprocating in Italy. Obviously emboldened by such firmness, Dimitrov sounded out Stalin’s view on the possible resignation of Georgiev, who had recently resurrected the idea of rapprochement with non-FF politicians. Dimitrov suggested the appointment of ‘our own’ Prime Minister,

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an indication of Communist wishes and above all of Dimitrov’s personal ambitions. However, Stalin was sceptical of such a scenario, and instead recommended that the Communists should draw Georgiev even closer and so aim to split Zveno. At the same time Stalin hoped that the Bulgarian Communists would make another effort to project a more open-minded and accommodating image. He believed that a new Bulgarian constitution should be sufficiently moderate ‘not to scare off the non-working classes’. Similar logic informed the suggestion that the Communists in Bulgaria should found a new Labour party. Superficially, this sounded like a dramatic departure from the current strategy; but as Stalin elaborated on it, it became obvious that he was experimenting with novel ways of increasing Communist influence in the ruling coalition. He envisaged a formation that would unite the different working strata rather than segregate the proletariat in its own party. Without forgetting the positive international effects, Stalin thought that the peasants who perceived the BRP(K) as hostile would be more lenient towards a Labour party. Nevertheless, he did not suddenly call for the elimination of the Communist party: a Labour party still ‘would be a people’s party’, ‘its nature would be Communist’ but it would provide ‘a convenient mask for the current moment’. Stalin frankly explained that the outcome of the war demanded that new means of building Socialism be found, this could be achieved without a dictatorship of the proletariat. He never hinted at a change in the ultimate goal, but reassured Dimitrov that in the long run the Communist programme would be accomplished to the full. Stalin demonstrated moderation on a range of issues, from recommending only a small number of Soviet advisers in the Bulgarian army to confiding that the Greek Communists’ boycott of the recent general elections had been a mistake. He assured the Bulgarians that he did not favour the Yugoslavs, and believed in the importance of a future South-Slav state in the Balkans. He even encouraged Bulgarian territorial demands in the south, though acknowledging that these could only be met through another war.77 Dimitrov returned from Moscow just in time for the 8 September referendum on the form of the Bulgarian state. Although the Opposition parties insisted that the procedure was illegal, as it contravened the existing constitution, they supported the substance of the proposal to abolish the monarchy; the result was that Bulgaria was declared a ‘people’s republic’ without much political controversy. Dimitrov had never hidden his hostility to the monarchy as an institution, and to the Saxe-Coburg dynasty in particular, although populist considerations led him to adopt a softer attitude to the nine-year-old King. At the time of the referendum, he found it convenient to let the Queen Mother know that he bore no ill-feeling towards her and her children. Simultaneously, he mulled over different possibilities for them, including sending them to the USSR. Eventually however, it was agreed to let them travel to Egypt. Dimitrov even authorised a promise that various possessions and assets would be expedited to the Royals after they had settled down. He considered this necessary to ensure that they departed with the minimum fuss, but he did not fulfil his undertaking.78 Any doubts that Dimitrov would follow Stalin’s advice in full seemed completely misplaced in the autumn of 1946. In a speech at the XI Plenum of the CC on 24

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September, Dimitrov presented the Communist elite with the idea of a Labour party in language almost identical to Stalin’s. While holding that the Bulgarian Communists should never give up building Socialism, Dimitrov claimed that ‘it appeared possible’ to omit the stage of dictatorship of the proletariat. A Labour party would build a bridge towards Socialism, a process underpinned by the increased post-war role of the Soviet Union and the emergence of ‘new democratic states’. The new party would fit the current stage better than the Communist party, as it would unite the erstwhile Agrarians, Social Democrats, some Radicals and even Zveno – i.e. practically all working classes and intellectuals. At a minimum, it would preserve the FF’s existing anti-fascist, anti-reactionary programme, but would also bring enormous advantages, such as eliminating rivalries among the current coalition partners for administrative posts. Most crucially, the leading cadre would be mostly Marxist, that is people who ‘have not given up and will not give up Communism’ and who would ensure that more maximalist aims were pursued later.79 Despite the rhetoric, the Labour party remained simply an idea, which Stalin did not follow up. For his part, Dimitrov focused exclusively on the approaching elections for the Grand National Assembly that would ratify the peace treaty and work out a new constitution. Dimitrov personally oversaw the Communist electoral campaign: no aspect was too insignificant, and he instructed scores of party propagandists to use the occasion for disseminating the Communist interpretation of national history, for instance glorifying the 1923 September Uprising. Not only did he direct the Communist satirists to ‘whip the Opposition’ but described in some detail the caricatures he would like to see, for instance one of ‘the stupid heads of the Opposition leaders being pulled with strings and given money by Barnes or Houstoun-Boswall’, respectively the US and British representative, and another of society’s need to get rid of the Opposition just as a man would get rid of lice. Dimitrov was convinced that visual methods were necessary, and more effective than the most brilliant speech, as the peasants ‘did not comprehend much of high politics’.80 Dimitrov also explained that it was necessary to reassure the public that the Communist party would not abolish private property or install a Soviet-style regime, and would neither sell out to Yugoslavia nor make Bulgaria a constituent republic of the USSR. All of these were concerns that circulated in society, some fuelled by political opponents. Dimitrov naturally looked at the issues in a different light: rapprochement between the Slavs should be extolled, as the peace and prosperity of the Balkan nations could be secured under the Soviet aegis. In a semi-official talk with Communist journalists on 30 September, Dimitrov also echoed Stalin’s pronouncement about Bulgarian expansion. He stated that Greece should be pushed out of Salonika and Turkey ousted from Europe. This was a complex mix of age-old Bulgarian territorial aspirations, Russian imperialist goals and Soviet strategic interest; at the same moment the Soviet Union was warily championing Bulgarian irredentism at the peace conference, partially as a tactical measure in the larger negotiations.81 United in the Federation of Urban and Rural Labour, the Opposition parties launched a strong electoral campaign. They criticised Communist policy intensively, and reported in their newspapers the full extent of the terror campaign pursued by the

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authorities. In the middle of heightened tensions, Dimitrov spent another fortnight in Moscow, visiting his physicians and socialising with old acquaintances and associates. In one brief conversation, Molotov confirmed that the Paris talks were proceeding as expected with respect to Bulgaria. The most extensive official contacts Dimitrov had were three meetings with Andrey Zhdanov, who was increasingly dealing with Eastern Europe. A range of issues, from the formal position of Dimitrov’s Soviet personal assistants to permission for financial aid for the FF Agrarians, were settled. Another three meetings with Bulganin secured weapons and 200 motorcycles for the people’s militia. From Moscow Dimitrov warned the Bulgarian CC to expect a worsening of the political climate and ‘all sorts of tricks, false rumours and deception by the Opposition’. Dimitrov was almost convinced that the Opposition would abstain from the forthcoming ballot, and advised the FF to try to ‘poach’ some Opposition candidates.82 The assumption that the Opposition intended to boycott the elections again proved wrong. On the contrary, the very day Dimitrov touched down in Sofia a massive Opposition rally was staged in the centre of the capital. This shook the Communists out of their relative complacency, and the following day Dimitrov presided at a Politburo meeting that marked the start of a more aggressive phase of the campaign: notably, local Communists were instructed to block or break non-FF gatherings. Shortly afterwards, Dimitrov for the first time crossed the country to appear at a Communist public meeting in Varna: he judged it to be ‘grandiose’, and his own speech ‘great’. On the return journey he spoke briefly in the smaller town of Mezdra. His excited and busy electioneering concluded with another ‘grandiose, unprecedented rally’ in the newly-renamed ‘9 September Square’ in Sofia, where he spoke for an hour and a half.83 According to Dimitrov 27 October, the day of the vote, passed without serious incidents; foreign correspondents largely confirmed that the event had been calm and orderly. Years later, one of his security men wrote that as Dimitrov toured poll stations he invariably encountered happy people who greeted him and were eager for him to speak.84 A less optimistic version by Georgi Markov, who later became the victim of the infamous ‘umbrella murder’ in London, recalled a drunken Dimitrov attempting to punch a trustee of the Opposition in one of the Sofia suburbs. Similarly, at a sanatorium near Sofia Dimitrov poured abuse on a group of students recovering from tuberculosis; he was deeply offended that while playing games and chatting they had not noticed his entry and had not saluted him appropriately.85 Yet another story from Pernik confirmed that an inebriated Dimitrov verbally assaulted a representative of the united Opposition, who was in due course sent to ‘a labour-educational camp’.86 Dimitrov claimed a ‘brilliant victory’ for the FF and especially for the Communists, who had secured a majority of mandates in the common lists. He remarked elatedly that across the country there were celebratory marches and even torch parades. But Dimitrov hardly had time to ‘explain the [future] perspectives’ to his less happy FF partners, give a press conference for foreign reporters and lead a meeting of the Politburo, before flying off to Moscow for the fourth time in six months. This was the shortest visit of all, lasting barely 24 hours. Dimitrov travelled

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for 18 hours, twice changing trains and planes due to the bad winter weather, only to find out that Stalin was on vacation in Sochi, across the Black Sea from the Bulgarian coast. A somewhat confused episode ensued as Dimitrov sent Stalin a list with the prospective composition of the Bulgarian government, asking for comments, and in the meantime met with Zhdanov. But the latter came up with his own letter to Stalin; this was self-contradictory, as it first criticised ‘Dimitrov and the others’ for assuming an inflexible and incautious attitude by precluding any negotiations with the Opposition, but also confirmed that the most important ministerial positions should be taken by the Communists, without talks with the Opposition. If, however, the Opposition sought a dialogue, the Communists should agree, but in doing so ensure failure and shift blame for it onto the Opposition.87 It is hardly surprising that after months of encouraging a more aggressive attitude, the Soviet leadership preached only an appearance of mildness towards the Opposition. Zhdanov was in theory suggesting flexibility but in fact advising a semblance of negotiations rather than genuine attempts to make the government more inclusive. The Soviets sought ways of confirming the supremacy of the Bulgarian Communists, all the more necessary since the latest vote had given the Communists a majority of just 53 per cent of the deputies. As the other FF parties had taken an additional 17 per cent, there was no real danger for the government. But it was remarkable that the Opposition, disparate and decimated, and above all subjected to intimidation and aggression had gained no less than 28 per cent.88 Therefore, once back in Sofia, Dimitrov made sure that the Communists continued to interfere with, infiltrate and destabilise their FF partners. The centripetal tendencies in the FF Agrarians were especially advanced and welcome: left-wingers led by the pro-Communist Georgi Dragnev simply declared to Dimitrov that they would follow his instructions.89 On 21 November 1946, in a momentous development, Dimitrov became the first Communist Prime Minister of Bulgaria. This was the crowning event in the twists and turns of his long political career, and the achievement of a long-held ambition. He was appointed to the post by his old comrade Kolarov, who was now President of the Republic, a much more ceremonial role. In Dimitrov’s first cabinet, ten of the 19 members were Communists, while familiar faces like Kimon Georgiev, who now took Foreign Affairs, and Dimo Kazasov, at the Ministry of Information, only nominally belonged to other FF parties and were very close to the BRP(K). On the very day of his formal assumption of power, Dimitrov published an article in Rabotnischesko Delo solely devoted to the definitive importance of the Soviet Union in Bulgaria’s recent history and future policy, both at the domestic and international level. It concluded with words that were clearly intended for a central place in Dimitrov’s political legacy: ‘Just as the sun and air are necessary for every living creature, friendship with the Soviet Union is indispensable’ for Bulgaria.90 Soon every primary-school child had to learn this pronouncement by heart. While Dimitrov enjoyed undisputed primacy in the cabinet, his position was much less comfortable in parliament, which immediately after its opening became the stage for unbridled clashes between the Communists and the Opposition. Dimitrov was thrown back into an atmosphere not too dissimilar to his parliamentary experience of

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30-odd years earlier, only the roles were now dramatically reversed. His wit and reactions were somewhat rusty with age and lack of practice, but his temper was even shorter than before, often precipitating arguments which common sense and official policy should have told him to avoid. The Opposition too was emboldened by its electoral performance, and sought to reinforce the confidence of its supporters and to seize the unprecedented opportunity to push the limits of Bulgarian domestic politics. While introducing the government’s programme to parliament Dimitrov was interrupted dozens of times – for him as well as for many of the Communist deputies who were less confident and eloquent, this was a long-forgotten and disagreeable experience. The major task of the Assembly, the preparation and adoption of the republican constitution, was overshadowed by the eruption of a virulent political struggle. By January 1947, Dimitrov had found what he saw as ‘the obstructions’ of the Opposition not only annoying but intolerable. When a young Social Democrat deputy accused the Communists of political terror and of instigating murders, Dimitrov ordered the guards to throw him out ‘as a rag’. In a figure of speech often employed by the Communists, Dimitrov equated his and his party’s attitude with that of the Assembly as a whole, shouting that ‘the patience of the Grand National Assembly is at its end’ and warned that those who obstructed would be ‘thrown out’. A similar tactic was used to claim much greater political support than the Communists actually commanded; it had long been their habit to speak of ‘the people’, ‘the working class’ and ‘the country’ when in fact they envisaged their own party’s interests and views. Several weeks later, an Agrarian deputy who was arrested inside the debating chamber was called ‘junk’ by the Prime Minister.91 Against a background of the unfolding bitter battle between the Communists and the Opposition, a personal virulent clash of will and convictions was shaping up between Georgi Dimitrov and Nikola Petkov. The latter had been transformed over the course of two years from a pivotal figure in the FF to the Communists’ most courageous and charismatic enemy. Coming from a well-known but ill-fated family of politicians – both his father and elder brother had been victims of political assassinations – he now took up the struggle for democracy and freedom with almost sacrificial dedication. From the first session of the Grand National Assembly, he harshly attacked Communist policy and practice, accusing Dimitrov of being a ‘satrap’ and ridiculing him for holding until recently foreign citizenship. To this Dimitrov found little to reply except the threatening ‘I will soon show you’ – rather confirming his opponent’s point. Even outside politics Dimitrov was over-sensitive to being disregarded and bestowed political meaning on incidents which did not necessarily carry it. One example was a drunken brawl at a popular mountain refuge not far from Sofia at the end of May: a US Army colonel and the Bulgarian doctor at the US diplomatic mission allegedly hurled abuse against the Bulgarian regime and the Soviet Union, pulling Dimitrov’s portrait from the wall and smashing it. Not only was Dimitrov informed of the scene, but he personally remonstrated with the Head of the US mission. He then even edited the press release, but decided not to publicise the detail

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that the Bulgarian citizen in question had swiftly been ‘handed over to . . . the people’s militia . . . for the necessary investigation’.92 The episode illustrates plainly the combination of megalomania, intolerance and petty aggressiveness in Dimitrov’s behaviour: he was convinced that the scene was of such magnitude that it had to be broadcast, yet he was hesitant to admit to his harsh treatment of the Bulgarian culprit. Dimitrov’s lifestyle and working habits were hardly affected by assuming the premiership. He moved to Vrana, the royal palace outside the city recently vacated by the exiled King. Many of the existing staff remained in service. It was in fact a working farm, with its own woods where Dimitrov could walk safely: it provided ample working and living accommodation. By then the Communists had already taken most of the other crown estates – in the mountains and on the Black Sea coast. And while Dimitrov did not seem to pay too much attention to his surroundings, his wife was not especially happy even in what would have been Bulgaria’s most comfortable residences. Understandably, she missed Moscow, where in the course of over a decade she had managed to develop interests and work of her own and where her close relatives remained. In Bulgaria, Rosa found it difficult to make friends: even Dimitrov’s sisters, while respectful, were not too welcoming. She tried to get involved with charity work but it is likely that the only real personal happiness came from adopting a little boy, Boyko, whose parents had been killed as Partisans.93 There were growing worries about Dimitrov’s health, which took a turn for the worse in the spring of 1947. He was permanently exhausted and often dizzy, suffered from bad headaches and poor appetite; he had back and shoulder pain and chronic irritation of the stomach. The medical protocols reveal that there was hardly a part of his body that was not under strain and discomfort. In May the doctors concluded that most of these symptoms were due to three major conditions – moderate diabetes, the onset of cirrhosis of the liver and progressive heart disease due to myocardial arteriosclerosis. All this was aggravated by the unavoidable mental exertion.94 Through the first half of 1947 a series of arrests and trials systematically destroyed any potential centres for resistance to the Communist-dominated regime. The noose was visibly tightening around Petkov, who had been ominously mentioned in many court proceedings. Sure enough, on 5 June 1947 the People’s Prosecutor demanded that Petkov’s parliamentary immunity be revoked. While a parliamentary committee immediately took care of the formalities, and with the militiamen waiting outside the door, in a final clash of words Petkov warned Dimitrov that ‘it is not possible to rule by vengeance’. This brought the reply that Petkov was receiving ‘just retribution’ and would get what he deserved. Petkov was accused of being ‘the instigator, organiser and leader of anti-Government conspiracies’. Simultaneously, 23 Opposition Agrarian deputies were forcibly thrown out of parliament. It was hardly a coincidence that shortly afterwards the parliament went into a three-month recess; with most Opposition papers banned permanently or temporarily, there was little opportunity for debate over the treatment of Petkov, or for protests against it.95 Dimitrov was deeply involved, politically and emotionally, in Petkov’s trial. He was certainly emboldened by the fact that in an extremely unfortunate coincidence the US Senate ratified the peace treaty with Bulgaria the same day as Petkov’s arrest. Two

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days later, when the British and US representatives demanded an audience with the Communist leader, he met their remonstrations with an appeal for pragmatism. Dimitrov jokingly reminded them the Bulgarian proverb about ‘not burning the blanket while trying to get rid of the flea’, the role of the latter clearly meant for Petkov. More unpleasantly, he questioned the reasons for the diplomatic interest, implying it could only aggravate the suspicion that the accused had acted in compliance with foreign agents. Dimitrov warned his visitors that their continued interference would only complicate the situation, a line that he also upheld publicly. To a formal US statement that Petkov’s arrest was a violation of human rights and democratic freedoms, Dimitrov replied through the press that foreign observers should have patience and faith in the independent Bulgarian judiciary. 96 But Petkov’s trial was a travesty, which was personally monitored and coordinated by Dimitrov. In the early days after the arrest, Dimitrov discussed ‘judiciary matters’ with the Interior Minister, the Director of State Security and the Director of Army Intelligence, and with the special Soviet advisors who dealt with such important cases. When the investigation was complete, Dimitrov and the most senior Politburo members, together with Soviet specialists, approved the formal act of accusation.97 From 8 August to 16 November 1947 Dimitrov underwent his next round of medical treatment in the Soviet Union. While still fully in charge of the Bulgarian government, with which he was in constant communication, he was free of the more mundane daily tasks, and as a result his diary for this period more clearly reveals his thinking on fundamental issues rather than simply his daily schedule. Petkov’s trial was among the major internal developments on which Dimitrov was regularly updated. Completely certain of its outcome, Dimitrov ordered that Petkov’s party should be disbanded even before the verdict was announced, he bluntly directed the parliament to vote for the revocation of the Opposition Agrarians’ mandates.98 When Petkov was predictably found guilty of treason, his life was in Dimitrov’s hands, a fact which did not seem unduly to trouble the latter. The prosecutor had asked for the death penalty; however, just as this was confirmed, Dimitrov set his trusted Kostov and Chervenkov the task of obtaining from Petkov ‘a handwritten signed letter to the prime minister with a full confession of his guilt as well as repentance, pointing to his links with foreign advisors’. The orders implied that Petkov would be helped with his writing and if that was satisfactory there would be a possibility of commuting the sentence.99 This could hardly be perceived as an example of a softening in the Communist attitude, as it would mean the political murder of Petkov. After his conviction, Petkov addressed five letters to Dimitrov, four to Kolarov and one to the Soviet representative Kirsanov. All were left without reply, and Dimitrov never mentioned them in his diary or in correspondence with the Politburo: the most likely explanation for this is that the Agrarian leader did not even begin to confess to his ‘crimes’. Kolarov’s was the only lonely voice recommending a less harsh sentence, citing exclusively international considerations. Dimitrov, however, was exceptionally irked by the very fact that the British and US governments continued publicly to demonstrate involvement in the case, in direct disregard of his earlier warning. On the occasion of 9 September, Dimitrov sent an open address to the Bulgarian people in

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which he unambiguously reminded them of Petkov’s case, stating that: ‘It is high time for everyone at home and abroad to realise that for saboteurs, spies and national traitors – irrespective of who they are – there cannot and will not be any mercy.’100 Western observers mused later whether their governments should not have acted exclusively behind the scenes, appealing to Dimitrov for mercy and playing on his sense of his all-importance.101 However, it is rather unlikely that such a course would have been effective, considering that during Petkov’s trial Dimitrov was already directing his lieutenants to speed up other outstanding cases in preparation for a total onslaught on the few Opposition politicians who remained at liberty. Petkov was executed on 23 September, the anniversary of the September Uprising, a bitter irony since Dimitrov always claimed that the event marked Communist–Agrarian cooperation. The summer of 1947 was also an eventful time for Bulgarian foreign policy. In the middle of July a Romanian delegation led by the Prime Minister, Petru Groza, visited Sofia and signed a preliminary protocol for a treaty of mutual assistance and cooperation. This covered a range of measures, from territorial security through to economic contacts, and even foresaw the conclusion of a customs union. Significant though this first official state visit was, it was overshadowed by Dimitrov’s own departure for Belgrade, with great pomp and circumstance, at the end of the month. He passed through each of the Serbian, Croatian and Slovene capitals to reach the scenic resort of Lake Bled, where he was met by Tito. The two discussed and finetuned the draft of a Yugoslav–Bulgarian treaty of mutual assistance and cooperation. Like the one with Romania, this complied with standard practice across Sovietdominated Eastern Europe: the aim was to build a strong web of strategic alliances among the Communist governments. However, the Bled summit underscored further the existing political agreement for unification between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, a process that would start with their parts of Macedonia. As a preliminary step, the course of intense ‘macedonianisation’ of the Pirin region was endorsed, the Bulgarian leaders thus reconfirming the resolutions of the Tenth Plenum of the Bulgarian CC. Dimitrov noted privately that Bulgarian Macedonia was not ‘yet’ to join the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. While strictly correct, this seems like an act which denied the spirit and long-term intent of the Bled Agreement – or a last attempt at procrastination, despite heavy Yugoslav and Soviet pressure. If Dimitrov had doubts about certain aspects of the prospective new state, he concealed them well in his upbeat public pronouncements, which sought to give Balkan and global significance to the recent developments. In one of his most applauded speeches during his Yugoslav visit, Dimitrov vividly evoked the central issues of the emerging Cold War, claiming that ‘some people try to spread fear of the atomic bomb . . . of a new war’. He then insisted that ‘only people with weak nerves, small brains and eye-blinkers . . . can be scared. The Slav people . . . who have suffered for centuries . . . cannot be scared.’ In Dimitrov’s stated view, it was no coincidence that Socialism had won in a Slav country. The West was ‘decadent, morally bankrupt and rotten’: French statesmen were ‘ready to fall to their knees to get US dollars, instead of confiscating the property and capital of their own bourgeoisie’, while in Britain ‘our friends the Labour Party

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don’t know what to do with their power and lead the same foreign policy as Churchill’. By contrast, ‘history has been benevolent to the Slavs and given them the mission to develop and impose on the world . . . a strong people’s European civilisation’.102 Dimitrov also mentioned a common concern with regard to Greece and Turkey, the borders of which were not secure and allowed spies and saboteurs to enter Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. However, he was confident that the two brotherly Communist countries would successfully defend themselves against such provocations. As if in response to these pronouncements, in the Kremlin less than a week later Stalin was in forthcoming mood; he promised help for the security of the Black Sea coast, the training of the Bulgarian army and direct involvement in various economic matters. Discussing some Western European Communist parties, Stalin almost echoed Dimitrov’s speech at Lake Bled, claiming that the French Communist leaders were obsessed with a fear that their country would not survive without US credits; he criticised their having allowed themselves, earlier in the year, to be thrown out of government instead of leaving of their own accord, and similarly voiced disapproval of the Italian Communists. These confidences quickly led Stalin to express dissatisfaction with some aspects of the Bled accords, namely that they should not have been publicised, as they inconveniently pre-empted the Bulgarian ratification of the peace treaty, and could be used as a pretext for increasing Western military aid to Greece and Turkey. Stalin was naturally concerned with the wider regional and international repercussions of Dimitrov’s Balkan policy; he was judging the potential strengthening of the Communist stronghold in the southern Balkans much less optimistically than the local leaders, as he factored in the risks of further deterioration in East-West relations. This was why he harshly criticised the publicity that had surrounded the Bled visit as ‘unnecessary screaming’ which revealed nothing more than haste and nervousness. In his lecture Stalin declared that ‘even the victors should be judged’, but Dimitrov came to no personal conclusions, believing the remark to be meant for Marshall Zhukov, the celebrated military commander who was also present. For the next few days Dimitrov was engaged with economic and military issues, and it was only on 12 August that he had to face reality when Stalin sent him a formal letter. This criticised the Yugoslav–Bulgarian agreement and highlighted the major concern that the Balkan neighbours had not coordinated their actions with the USSR, and by so doing had prevented the possibility of action against negative international repercussions. Suddenly, Dimitrov realised Stalin’s views and was jolted into action. He wrote to Tito that the two of them had ‘got carried away’ and did not hesitate to suggest that they should rectify the mistake by temporarily annulling the Bled Agreement and reinstating it at a more opportune time, ‘of course, after consulting the Soviet friends’.103 Dimitrov was still in the USSR when the founding meeting of the Communist Information Bureau (Cominform) took place in Szklarska Poręba in Poland at the end of September 1947. Only six weeks earlier, in his nominal capacity as Head of the DII, Dimitrov had proposed the setting-up of an ‘International Committee for the Fight against the Danger of War and Fascism’, a title distinctly reminiscent of mass

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campaigns in the early 1930s. Even Baranov, the acting head of the DII, found Dimitrov’s proposal untimely and ill-judged, as it could lead to international complications and undermine the existing trade-union, women’s and other grassroots Communist-oriented organisations which already focused on anti-war propaganda. 104 Nevertheless, there were similarities between Dimitrov’s short-lived idea and the new Communist international institution, especially since the latter’s periodical was entitled For Lasting Peace, For People’s Democracy! Only a month after Stalin’s remark that Yugoslav–Bulgarian relations should have progressed ‘silently’, he gave the go-ahead to the Bulgarian–Yugoslav Treaty of Mutual Assistance. This was no backtracking: adamant on the formality of first completing the ratification of the Bulgarian peace treaty, Stalin once again asserted Soviet superiority over the foreign policy and mutual relations of the Eastern European countries. The Bled Agreement was never in fact revoked, and on 27 November Dimitrov played host to Tito’s return visit to Bulgaria. In Evxinograd, a Bulgarian royal resort on the Black Sea, the two leaders countersigned the treaty between their states. The idea of a Balkan federation stood at the heart of Bulgarian foreign policy. A number of Western observers perceived it partially as a Bulgarian manoeuvre to sidestep the provisions of the peace treaty, but mainly as an instrument of ongoing Soviet pressure on the eastern Mediterranean and the Straits. 105 Dimitrov put his finger directly on the open sore when, on 17 January 1948, he spoke to journalists on the train carrying him back from a visit to Romania. Flamboyantly and unexpectedly, he referred not only to the negotiations progressing between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia, but also outlined a much broader merger of Eastern European states. He specifically named ‘Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Albania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary and Greece’ and repeated, ‘please note, Greece as well!’ insisting all were to join together into a single federated state. Moreover, he stated that ‘when the time is ripe – and it is turning ripe now – our people . . . will solve this question’. The explicit inclusion of Greece among the people’s democracies instantly drew international attention. Dimitrov had previously expressed moral solidarity with the struggle of the Greek Communists and he was suspected, correctly, of providing help for them. Yet the new statement was the most specific and emphatic to date; to ‘domino theorists’ it highlighted the plausibility of the Communist-ruled countries being used as stepping-stones for further territorial and ideological conquests. The historic disputes over Macedonia, only the Greek part of which was now left out of the emerging South-Slav union, were another explanation for Dimitrov’s sudden pronouncement. Significantly, however, the first negative reaction to Dimitrov's sweeping declaration came from Belgrade: Tito sensed the potential damage and distanced himself from Dimitrov's position. The Yugoslav leader hoped that Stalin would ‘have a word with the Bulgarian comrades’.106 Dimitrov was generally regarded as an eloquent speaker, if rather prone to exaggeration. His own political preferences within the Communist movement were for radical measures, and apparently his age and his assumption of power in Bulgaria had reinforced these tendencies. Only five months earlier, after his Bled visit, he had been criticised by Stalin precisely for saying too much in public. Dimitrov had either not

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fully comprehended the meaning of Stalin’s disapproval, or had been momentarily carried away – even though the latter is not too plausible in view of the pointed repetition that Greece was included in the scheme. This was neither a deliberate snub of Stalin’s advice nor a pre-conceived test of the limits of his aspirations in the region. It was most likely a rather clumsy and poorly-timed expression of Dimitrov’s own long-term vision, which he now felt freer to reveal. To maintain that this was an attempt by Dimitrov to chart an independent course is to discount his erstwhile obedience to Stalin, and to overlook the fact that when reprimanded he immediately toed the line. The Soviet reaction to Dimitrov’s interview followed after a short delay. Indeed, as Djilas sought to clarify the matter on 19 January 1948, Zhdanov refrained from making specific comments and did not hint at possible censure. But when shortly afterwards the Soviet leaders learned about Tito’s plan to send two Yugoslav divisions to Albania, they were suddenly faced with the prospect of an altogether much more activist Communist policy in the Balkans than they believed acceptable.107 Imprudent as Dimitrov’s grandiloquent statement had been, it assumed ominous proportions when seen in conjunction with his ally Tito’s ill-judged moves. On 23 January 1948 Pravda mentioned Dimitrov’s statement in a neutral manner. However, the following day Stalin telegraphed Dimitrov to say that the train interview had been ‘rash and damaging’, as it undoubtedly would encourage the ‘struggle of the Anglo-Americans against . . . the people’s democracies’. According to his secretary, Dimitrov was ‘angry with himself’ for having committed such a mistake and immediately wrote to Stalin to accept the critical remarks and thank him; the remorse was not acknowledged but, adding insult to injury, on 28 January Pravda reprinted Stalin’s telegram.108 Apparently, Stalin had chosen such a shocking method of showing his dissatisfaction because his earlier expressions of interest in the matter and his insistence on being fully consulted had once again gone unheeded. This step visibly saddened Dimitrov, who asked aloud, ‘Hadn’t I earned a little confidence?’ Still, the sense of disappointment and personal offence were overcome by ‘soberness and wisdom’, and the following day Dimitrov fully acknowledged his mistake. He wrote to Stalin a second time, swearing that ‘nobody in our party, least of all I, would consciously make any step in our internal or international policy which would go contrary to the position of VKP(B) and would harm our common cause’.109 Additionally, he published an official disavowal of his unfortunate statement in the Bulgarian Communist daily. On 10 February, a week after the extensive public criticism and the retraction of his statement, Dimitrov had to face Stalin for the most humiliating reprimand. The Soviet leader was ruthlessly scornful, reprimanding Dimitrov for ‘going dizzy with press conferences and interviews’. These had not been coordinated with the Soviets but instead facilitated the consolidation of the Western European bloc, now stimulated by the introduction of the US Marshall Plan. A most vivid image of the ageing Dimitrov standing with bowed head before Stalin was captured by Djilas: the one-time Leipzig hero’s physical state was pitiful and his moral desolation complete.110

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Brutal as it was, the chastising of Dimitrov was not Stalin’s primary purpose. Rather, it was an element of a wider effort to bring the Yugoslav Communists into line as their recent foreign-policy actions were construed as attempts to build a power-base in the Balkans, challenging Soviet dominance there. The comparison with Tito’s independent thinking cast Dimitrov in a particularly unflattering light. Yet, much more than in Tito’s case, Dimitrov’s entire career over the previous 15 years had unfolded in Stalin’s shadow, sharpening his instincts for compromise and subordination to authority. Alternatively, it was precisely Soviet backing that had strengthened Dimitrov’s position vis-à-vis the increasingly confident Tito, although it had not been sufficient to forestall at least some of the Yugoslav agenda at the expense of Bulgaria. In April 1948, after several written exchanges of unprecedented mutual accusations between Stalin and Tito, Dimitrov published an article on ‘The Struggle of the Bulgarian People for Democracy and Socialism’ in the Cominform journal. He argued that although Bulgaria and Yugoslavia needed to cooperate they would not unite formally. But there are also indications that Dimitrov did not favour a categorical split with Tito, and might even have seen himself as an intermediary who would steer the Yugoslavs away from extreme decisions and back into the Soviet fold. One of his aides claimed that Dimitrov had proposed a meeting with Tito, but that only Djilas turned up at the railway station where the Bulgarian delegation travelling to Prague had stopped on 19 April.111 For his part, Djilas insisted that it was Tito who had first approached Dimitrov, and that the latter encouraged the Yugoslavs ‘to remain steadfast, and the rest would follow’. Dimitrov’s attitude was reported to have contrasted starkly with that of his surly companion, Chervenkov, who was categorically certain that the Bolshevik CC should not be crossed. 112 In his turn, in July 1948, Dimitrov told the Bulgarian CC that after the February conversations in Moscow he had deliberately avoided meeting Tito, despite nominally agreeing to rework the federation plans.113 The different versions of Dimitrov’s non-encounter with Tito are not necessarily contradictory and together hint at Dimitrov’s ambivalence on the Yugoslav problem. In May and June the two had exchanged birthday greetings, still pursuing the line of good relations. While this is hardly a sign of an anti-Stalinist trend, Dimitrov most probably found it unthinkable that any Communist leader would allow a break with the Soviet Union. Neither had he given up completely the idea of federation. What is more, with the Yugoslavs clearly in disfavour in Moscow, the dynamics between the two neighbouring countries were clearly affected. For the Bulgarians, the set-back to Tito’s ambitions meant preserving territorial integrity and a chance to reconsider, if not completely rectify, the devastating policies that had reigned in the Pirin region for almost two years. Dimitrov’s aides noticed that he was more pensive and spoke more cautiously after the latest consultation in the Kremlin. There were other sources of discontent, among them the serious problem of Communist cadres, of which Dimitrov was acutely aware. The BRP(K) had secured leading positions in the central and local administrations, at the top levels of education and the economy, and generally in all spheres of life. But

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adequate performance of party members in these posts was limited by the omnipresent lack of training and experience. Dimitrov drew the attention of the Communist members of the Assembly to the fact that few people liked to learn. At the end of May 1948, Dimitrov had an occasion to vent his anger at the unsatisfactory state of affairs: on a visit to Poland, where the physical destruction from the war was plain to see, he was struck by ‘the shops, the goods, the plenteous food . . . the standard of living’. Dimitrov reminded his companions that in Bulgaria ‘people starve, wait in queues – how do you want them to trust us?’114 Yet, his immediate conclusion was that he was ‘surrounded by incompetents’, a remark he had often heard Stalin make and which was in this instance pierced by an utter refusal to share in the responsibility. At the same time, Dimitrov was notably perturbed by a stream of inappropriate publication activities by top Communists since late 1947. At the end of November 1947, he proposed that the Politburo should look into several instances where highprofile comrades such as Vladimir Topencharov, editor-in-chief of Rabotnichesko Delo, and the former Regent, Todor Pavlov, had published political texts unsuitable for the current time. Even Kolarov had made serious omissions, mentioning Trotsky in one of his works as no less than the comrade of Lenin. From now on Dimitrov insisted that the CC took over control of all publications; Kolarov’s book was withdrawn from sale, and he was required to explain his blatant mistake – which further disgruntled the increasingly alienated old Communist.115 In turn, Kolarov was particularly sarcastic about Dimitrov’s recent string of ill-judged actions, privately calling the Bulgarian Premier ‘the man who talked the most in Bulgaria’, in contrast to Stalin, ‘who talked the least in the Soviet Union’. Kolarov pointed to several embarrassing incidents caused by Dimitrov, even before the fateful interview of January 1948. At the time of the currency reform in March 1947, Dimitrov had tactlessly accused the French diplomatic representative of dealing on the black market. Then he had clearly overstepped decency by reminding the Social Democrats in the Assembly of Petkov’s fate. According to Kolarov, who had known Dimitrov longer and better than most, these and other gaffes were the result of Dimitrov’s inability to stay calm, when tempted, of his habit of ‘talking before thinking’. Kolarov was sceptical that in the future Dimitrov would be ‘able to hold his temper, overcome his nature’.116 In the wake of the Pravda rebuke, Dimitrov hurriedly took steps to limit the socalled ‘cult of personality’ which had been developing among the Communists since the Leipzig Trial, but had reached new heights after 9 September 1944. In imitation of the Soviet tradition where everything bore Stalin’s name, in Bulgaria the new constitution of 1947 and the Communist Youth Union were both called after Dimitrov; even a new model industrial town the building of which began in late 1947 was named Dimitrovgrad. Everywhere he went, he was greeted with prolonged applause, name-chanting and slogans such as ‘Long live Bulgaria’s national hero, comrade Dimitrov!’117 But now a change occurred in Dimitrov’s behaviour, as he tried to demonstrate more sobriety and modesty. On 2 February 1948 he reprimanded the radical Dragoicheva for adopting the non-Marxist tendency of speaking publicly on her own behalf rather than on that of the FF National Committee which she chaired. More strikingly, Dimitrov stipulated that he should not be described as ‘a great leader’

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or ‘the greatest son of the motherland’, as these were unsuitable and even harmful flatteries.118 In this directive Dimitrov somewhat detachedly referred to himself as ‘the head of the party and the FF, comrade Dimitrov’ and seemingly implied that he had nothing to do with such erstwhile practices. After years of counting his portraits at rallies, insisting on the meticulous transcription of his speeches and eulogising the September Uprising and Leipzig Trial as both Communist and national triumphs, Dimitrov now worried about what had become Communist mantra of respect and subordination. Not long afterwards, he sent a note to the Secretariat of the National Assembly insisting that the statues of Kolarov and himself, which had for some time stood at the entrance of the building, be removed. This too was a small but clear signal that Stalin’s latest criticism of excess and conceit had cut to the core. However, Dimitrov was not breaking entirely new ground – the previous June he had for instance written a note to the effect that a youth work brigade’s motto, ‘Building for Dimitrov’, was wrong. Little had been done to put an end to what was wide-spread practice.119 Dimitrov’s own sincerity in this matter is questionable. When he visited Poland in May 1948, the Bulgarian Embassy was worried that it had not been able to organise what it considered the necessary ‘people’s welcome’, believing that the Bulgarian Prime Minister would not like to pass through empty streets; in the end the staff were relieved to find that a small crowd had indeed gone out to meet Dimitrov, who was clearly enjoying saluting from his open car. The following day at a formal diplomatic reception Dimitrov, who could never resist being the centre of attention, got up from his place and started presenting flowers to the women among the guests. 120 Perhaps the line between his need to be loved and his wish to be obeyed was rather fine. In the meantime, the greatest drama was under way in the Communist bloc as tensions between Stalin and Tito mounted. Dimitrov watched nervously, aware that Soviet–Yugoslav relations directly affected Bulgaria’s domestic developments and its strategic situation. Ultimately, the expulsion of the Yugoslav Communists from the Cominform at the end of June was an occasion for Dimitrov to display loyalty to the Soviet Union. The BRP(K) never questioned which side to support. At the XIV Plenum of the CC on 12–13 July 1948, Dimitrov declared that it was ‘axiomatic’ for the Bulgarian Communists that the VKP(B) and the USSR stood at the pinnacle of the international Communist movement. The plenum was convened to look at the implications of the Yugoslav problem, but its leitmotif was proving Bulgarian allegiance to Stalin. Dimitrov’s key speech was in the classic style of self-criticism. He admitted that, although being in the closest of relationships with the Yugoslavs, the Bulgarian side had clearly not been sufficiently alert and had not anticipated the crisis. He also speculated that matters might have gone much worse had the federation been already accomplished. Besides the split with Yugoslavia, Dimitrov highlighted a range of errors on the domestic front. The level of ‘internal party democracy’ was not acceptable: command and force rather than leadership and persuasion were the prevailing methods, while ‘criticism and self-criticism have not become the necessary driving force’. The admissions policy of the BRP(K) was questionable as many otherwise undesirable

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members were taken in simply to stop them from joining other parties. This engendered problems with the education of novices, which in turn prevented the party from fulfilling its role as the vanguard of the workers. Another concern, of a more theoretical nature, was underestimating the class struggle during the transition period: the party had entertained illusions regarding the so-called patriotic bourgeoisie, and so delayed the destruction of the Opposition. Dimitrov warned that all this – and more – blurred the understanding of the pace and perspectives of Socialism. He explained it partially by undue Yugoslav influence, which had led to building up the FF at the expense of the BRP(K) itself. One specific area where the association with Yugoslavia was recognised as particularly harmful was policy in the Pirin region, where he believed the situation had been aggravated after February. The Bulgarians’ mistake was to trust the Yugoslavs, allowing their emissaries to open bookshops and start teaching the Macedonian language before the retrieval of the western borderlands and the formal establishment of federation. Dimitrov acknowledged that his own rash public statements had been all the more wrong and potentially damaging, as he was known for being ‘close to Stalin’ and all his enemies believed his words had been coordinated with Stalin. He conceded that he had spoken out of turn on an important international question, but confidently announced that the biggest Bulgarian errors had been quickly rectified by Stalin’s timely interference. This was a favour the Bulgarian Communists would never forget, just as the central lesson of the Yugoslav challenge was to increase their loyalty to the USSR and to Stalin personally. Dimitrov reminded his audience that Stalin’s recent involvement was not an isolated act of support for the Bulgarian Communists – he thought it imperative to recognise that for three whole years the Soviet army had rendered invaluable help in the destruction of the reactionaries and in ensuring that the Communists acquired all the leading positions in the state. Dimitrov believed that the latest reprimand by the Soviet leader had provided a much-needed ‘cleansing bath’ for the whole Party, and for him personally. It had been necessary in order to remember that even though the Comintern no longer existed, the Communist parties formed a common front under the tutelage of ‘the mightiest party of Lenin and Stalin’. At the heart of Dimitrov’s speech was the affirmation that all Communist parties had but one acclaimed leader and teacher, in the person of Stalin. By contrast, Dimitrov underlined that it was ridiculous and detrimental to praise the Bulgarian party leader as a genius: nobody should be presented as equal to Stalin. In Dimitrov’s view: ‘If we stay loyal disciples of Lenin and Stalin and if we admit our mistakes, there is no danger of a crisis of the Yugoslav kind.’ And so he confirmed that the Bulgarians had resolutely decided ‘to stay loyal to death to Marxism-Leninism, international Communist solidarity, our genius teachers’.121 In the second week of August Dimitrov began feeling unwell; a medical council diagnosed cardio-vascular deficiency, inflammation of the liver and bile, irregular blood circulation, acute diabetes and under-skin haemorrhages.122 It was a public secret that his lifestyle accounted for much of this ill health. During the state visit of May 1948, an official at the Bulgarian Embassy in Warsaw was equally impressed by Dimitrov’s personality and appalled by his habitual heavy drinking and chain smoking.

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To an expression of concern Dimitrov retorted that his ‘job was to smoke and the doctors’ to cure’ him.123 A week after the extensive August health checks, Dimitrov received a telegram from none other than Stalin, asking him to follow the doctors’ advice and take a two-month break at the familiar Boroviha sanatorium. 124 Dimitrov recuperated in the Soviet Union from the end of September till the end of November, while keeping in constant contact with the Bulgarian CC and government. A most important effect of the Yugoslav debacle was to precipitate a fresh internal scrutiny of the character of the Bulgarian regime, a task that had been sporadically pursued before but acquired added urgency in mid-1948. Sensing a necessity to confirm their standing vis-à-vis Moscow, the Bulgarian leadership embarked on a quest to prove that they had followed a different post-war path to that of the Yugoslavs. They believed that adherence to the Soviet example was a pivotal criterion for their ideological purity and practical achievements. The requisite for comprehensive analysis of the BRP(K)’s strategy since its advent to power also stemmed from the prevalent Communist conviction that their policies were scientifically based on the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism. The party faithful as well as the public at large should be persuaded that current developments corresponded closely with core ideological principles. This was of immediate relevance to the forthcoming congress of the BRP(K), where its entire strategy would be sanctioned and its vision for the future laid down. The Yugoslav issue was woven into the broader question of the nature of the power exercised by the Bulgarian Communists. This had been broached at the founding Cominform meeting in September 1947, where the countries in the Soviet sphere had been designated ‘people’s democracies’. Some thought was given to the meaning of the term, but this was overshadowed by efforts to secure the uniformity of the Communist-dominated countries and their allegiance to the Soviet Union. 125 This was the main influence behind the extensive criticism of the BRP(K) by Chervenkov, the primary Bulgarian representative at Szklarska Poręba, upon his return. He exposed errors in both the methods and the strategy of the party; he was especially dissatisfied with what he called ‘rightist deviations’ and with the slowing pace of political and economic change. This triggered a sustained discussion within the CC, which also revealed another area of disagreement relating to the events of 9 September 1944. Here, an array of opinions on the take-over existed, ranging from a coup to a Socialist revolution. Chervenkov was at the fore of a group that included Terpeshev and the Communist Youth leader Titko Chernokolev, who all insisted that a Socialist uprising had taken place. Dimitrov himself chose the somewhat fluid formula that ‘9 September had been a people’s uprising of a deeply revolutionary nature which transferred power from the bourgeoisie to the workers’. He was adamant that not simply a change of government but a veritable popular cataclysm had occurred, although cautious to call it straightforwardly a revolution.126 The fact that the CC did not initially share Dimitrov’s opinions unanimously on such a fundamental matter could indicate that under his leadership, despite the respect he commanded and the control he imposed, there was some scope for debate. Dimitrov, however, disapproved of Chervenkov’s rashness and went so far as to claim

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that his brother-in-law’s thinking did not contain ‘an ounce of Marxism’. Dimitrov explained that deeper reforms could only have been undertaken if Bulgaria had existed in a complete international vacuum. Nevertheless, after the expulsion of Yugoslavia from the Cominform in June 1948, even Dimitrov’s closest associate Kostov adopted some of the CC’s more radical ideas.127 In July 1948, the CC convened a plenum to ratify the Yugoslav expulsion from the Cominform. Interestingly, it also raised the issue of people’s democracy, which Dimitrov confirmed as the ‘correct’ course, ‘on the whole’. This had exercised the minds of a number of prominent Communists across Eastern Europe: both the Polish Gomułka and the Yugoslav Kardelj had seen it as a stage where the Communists commanded the fundamental state positions and gradually eliminated capitalist tendencies. Crucially, it was also a strategy which positively allowed for national differences and adapted to the individual conditions in each country. However, the dispute with Tito had highlighted the danger of national objectives undermining the unity of the Soviet bloc, which in turn contributed to the rapid undermining after mid-1948 of the notion of people’s democracy.128 Although the concept of people’s democracy had gradually lost its value for Stalin, it dominated preparations for the Fifth Congress of the BRP(K) scheduled for December 1948. This was to be the first such forum for no less than 25 years; the importance of its assessment of the party’s past policy and present programme could not be overestimated. During the long stretch between August and November 1948 that Dimitrov spent in Boroviha, he was able to devote considerable time and thought to the theoretical analysis of the Bulgarian regime. Initially, and apparently accidentally, the only companion with whom he shared thoughts on the subject was Otto Kuusinen.129 Eventually, Dimitrov produced a lengthy document which aimed to reflect not just on Bulgarian developments but the diverse experience of Eastern Europe after the Second World War. The scope and ambition underlying his endeavour could only be compared to his report on the popular front for the last Comintern Congress. Indeed, on various levels there was a distinct continuity between the two projects. Dimitrov’s pivotal argument was that people’s democracy was the framework within which Socialism could be accomplished without the dictatorship of the proletariat. The latter stood in Marxist theory for the revolutionary transformation from capitalism to Socialism, and also described the regime Lenin had established in Russia in 1917. In essence, Dimitrov proposed that there were various routes to Communism, and developments in the Soviet-controlled zone after 1945 had shown that the Soviet example was not inevitable: As a means necessary in the transition from capitalism to Socialism . . . the dictatorship of the proletariat is not an end in itself but a means for the realisation of Socialism. The end is one – Socialism. The means can differ. If people’s democracy does not work, then dictatorship of the proletariat [should be imposed]. But Socialism must take place.

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Dimitrov was certain that the working class would ‘resort to dictatorship of the proletariat’ if challenged by hostile internal or external forces. The manner in which he articulated the alternative was closer to the common notion that dictatorship of the proletariat used widespread violence. Updated on Dimitrov’s intellectual labours, the Bulgarian Politburo perceived a link between people’s democracy and dictatorship of the proletariat; indeed, they expressed the belief, rather boldly, that the two ‘were almost the same thing’, as people’s democracy ‘led to Socialism and so performed the functions of dictatorship of the proletariat’.130 The argument for a more radical classification was particularly taken up by Dragoicheva, who offered the thought that people’s democracy was ‘but an imperfect dictatorship of the proletariat’ and would possibly ‘evolve into classic proletarian democracy’. She was clearly unconvinced by some of Dimitrov’s more elastic formulations and distinctly dissatisfied that Dimitrov ‘had not said a word about the liquidation of capitalism in general and of the kulaks in particular’.131 Several drafts of Dimitrov’s paper on people’s democracy reveal the stages in his thinking and the forces that influenced it in the final weeks before the congress. The intervention of the Bulgarian CC pointed to more extreme attitudes at the highest levels of the BRP(K), and Dimitrov agreed to edit substantial portions of his writings in order to reflect the concerns voiced by his comrades. As a result, he bolstered his assessment of the role of the USSR by emphasising the Soviet victory in the war as the factor that had ushered in people’s democracy; he repeated that ‘friendship and cooperation’ with the Soviet Union was ‘indispensable’. He emphasised that the countries of people’s democracy belonged to the anti-imperialist Soviet-led bloc, which guaranteed their sovereignty and security. Discussing the key features of people’s democracy, Dimitrov affirmed that it bestowed power on the productive classes whereby workers held a ‘leading’ position; later he altered this to a more forceful ‘hegemonic’ role for the proletariat. He also stressed that the state was ‘an instrument used by the labourers to fight’ against their exploiters. Dimitrov understood people’s democracy as a transition stage on the road to Socialism: even though capitalist elements had been ousted from political power, their economic roots had not been fully destroyed and this made them aspire to restoration of the old system. Thus achieving Socialism still required ‘relentless class struggle’. Trying to avoid this evocative revolutionary term, later versions replaced it with the more descriptive ‘persistent fight against the exploiting classes’. And yet Dimitrov did agree that a regime of people’s democracy could act as the dictatorship of the proletariat by overcoming the resistance of capitalist elements; by applying the principle of public ownership in the economy and by the persistent strengthening of the working class, so it kept in check the volatile urban and peasant middle classes. It was necessary to face internal and external enemies; it was vital to improve the alliance with the peasants, which should nevertheless be dominated by the workers and aim at squeezing out the rich kulaks. The recent turbulence in the Soviet zone led Dimitrov to pose the question of proletarian internationalism. He asserted that ‘nationalism under any guise’ was the enemy of Communism, as proved by the ‘anti-Communist practices of Tito’s

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nationalist group’. To fight against nationalism was the top responsibility of the Communists, but it should not be forgotten that ‘the whole future of our people depends on the might of the Soviet Union, as well as on the fulfilment of our international duty in the event of imperialist aggression’.132 Dimitrov’s overall conclusion was rather convoluted: he maintained that although in principle it was possible to pass from capitalism to Socialism without a dictatorship of the proletariat, a people’s democracy in fact did fulfil certain functions of the former. The doubts raised by Dimitrov’s Bulgarian colleagues were one reason, but not the only one, for his resorting to the ultimate authority on Marxist political science and practice. As on previous occasions, Dimitrov sent an extended executive summary of his draft to Stalin at the beginning of November 1948. The response was provided on 6 December 1948 in an interview with a delegation from the Bulgarian CC. For Stalin there was no alternative but for the transition from capitalism to socialism to go through the dictatorship of the proletariat. The latter could assume different forms in different circumstances, linking the nature of the regime primarily to the methods of taking of power. Thus, while the Soviet regime had been shaped by the internal strife after the Bolshevik takeover, in Eastern Europe a milder, even parliamentary version sufficed. But Stalin explained that the power of the working classes in Bulgaria had been acquired not by internal uprising but by external help from the Red Army. The relatively effortless takeover made it possible to forego a Soviet regime. The logic of this analysis led Stalin to declare that ultimately, people’s democracy and the Soviet regime constituted two varieties of dictatorship of the proletariat.133 The context in which Stalin offered these observations was of immense significance. They cannot be fully appreciated without taking into consideration the efforts that the European Communist parties had made to adjust their policies in the light of the consultations surrounding the formation of the Cominform. Nor can they be separated from the effects of the Soviet–Yugoslav conflict. While in December 1948 Stalin drew attention to the differences between the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, he also clearly pointed out that in future the people’s democracies should strive to approximate as much as possible to the Soviet model. The early stages of people’s democracy had corresponded to the idea of separate national roads to socialism, but already more uniformity and more similarity to the Soviet Union was required. Indeed, such understanding was reflected in the fact that the Fifth Congress changed the name of the BRP(K) to the more straightforward Bulgarian Communist Party. Several scholars have posited that Dimitrov did not fully embrace Stalin’s views, as in his early writings on the matter he distinguished between people’s democracy and dictatorship of the proletariat. However, in his letter to Stalin of 2 November 1948 he qualified this position by accepting that people’s democracy ‘could and should’ fulfil the functions of dictatorship of the proletariat. In the end, the main report to the Fifth Congress adopted Stalin’s view that people’s democracy was one expression of dictatorship of the proletariat, just as the Soviet regime was another. The suggestion that last-minute changes were made to the report under pressure from the Soviet delegation, led by Mikhail Suslov, seems exaggerated. In his greeting to the congress Suslov did not refer to Dimitrov individually, and this is construed as a minor

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diplomatic scandal and a sign of Soviet displeasure with the Bulgarian leader’s disobedience regarding Stalin’s positions on the emerging theory of people’s democracy. Yet consecutive drafts of the report reveal that Dimitrov’s position was gradually converging with Stalins’s.134 In his closing remarks he specifically and unambiguously highlighted the postulate that ‘people’s democracy and Soviet regime are two forms of dictatorship of the proletariat’. It is a question of judgement whether this should be presented as an instance where he held on to his different opinion for as long as was politically expedient, or as a confirmation of his habit of toeing the Soviet line as soon as it was known. It should certainly be acknowledged that in this particular instance Dimitrov adopted the Soviet view in full quite late in the day, considering that the conference at Szklarska Poręba had already called on Communist parties to begin actively implementing the Soviet example. Among national Communist leaders, Gomułka did not completely give up the notion of national paths to socialism until August 1948. Ideological arguments notwithstanding, the regime presided over by Dimitrov had consistently sought to emulate the Soviet model of government. A wide spectrum of reforms – from reorganisation of the media to the army – pointed clearly to the fact that the most prominent and notorious features of Soviet reality were replicated in Bulgaria. Among these was the growing influence of the security apparatus and special services. They had been instrumental in the organisation of the series of political trials that had punctuated the FF’s rule ever since the inception of the People’s Court. As the main Opposition figures had been eliminated by late 1947, the militia proceeded to deal with lesser actors, including Dimitrov’s one-time political accomplices of the second half of the 1920s: the Agrarian Nedyalko Atanassov was imprisoned and Hristo Stoyanov was placed under surveillance. Alexander Obbov, a more recent Agrarian collaborator who had been propelled to the fore of the BZNS after challenging Nikola Petkov, was placed under 24-hour surveillance and shadowed by no fewer than eight operatives.135 Even Dimitrov’s only surviving brother, Lyuben, was monitored, with Dimitrov’s express permission; he was found to be involved in speculative black-market activities and on several business trips to Vienna, Prague and Budapest he had obtained favours and loans and broken regulations, all by using Dimitrov’s name. However, what would normally have been classified as criminal activities were terminated merely by a ban on foreign travel.136 The harsh treatment invariably received by Dimitrov’s political opponents was not only a feature of the system he put in place but also a reflection of his character. His personal involvement in high-profile cases such as Petkov’s and Pastuhov’s suggests political ruthlessness, which the Bolsheviks readily cultivated as the sign of a true revolutionary, but also hints at sheer human vengeance. On the other hand, Dimitrov’s aides praised his kindness and humour, and his numerous acts of charity towards those in trouble, irrespective of their political convictions.137 Memoirs abound of Dimitrov giving an ageing downcast painter a pair of shoes, inspiring a politically-disorientated satirist to resume work, enticing a famous actress of his youth to return from exile. At the same time, he continued to ask for clemency for Bulgarians who had survived the Soviet gulags – with controversial motives and mixed results. All Dimitrov’s attempts

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to help one Nikola Popov, who had been released from Kolima in 1946, to obtain a residence permit for Moscow or be repatriated were persistently ignored by all the relevant Soviet authorities, leaving the impression that he was simply not made privy to their particular reasons.138 This clearly illustrates the limits he ran up against when it came to Soviet bureaucracy and state expediency. Dimitrov exerted himself to the utmost in the resolution of theoretical issues, perhaps hoping that this would become part of a long-lasting political and ideological legacy. However, at the time of the Fifth Congress his authority was immediately shaken further by the fast-spreading internal party crisis converging on the position of Traicho Kostov. Handling this became one of the biggest and last tests of Dimitrov’s personal integrity and leadership qualities. Unfortunately for Kostov, it took place during the last six months of Dimitrov’s life, when the latter’s physical capacity for work was rapidly deteriorating, along with his power in the party. However, it should not be assumed that with better health and fewer burdens Dimitrov would necessarily have acted differently. Dimitrov’s diary suggests that the Kostov case emerged with some urgency during the wide-ranging interview with Stalin on 6 December 1948. Dimitrov noted that: Stalin criticised Traicho very sharply for his refusal to allow Soviet representatives in Sofia to get information directly from the relevant Bulgarian economic institutions. He qualified this as equal to Tito’s case . . . Friendship and cooperation ‘without lies, without haughtiness’ are necessary among the Communists . . . A very serious suspicion by Stalin (supported by Molotov) of cunning and deceit on the part of Traicho and in relation to this, some doubt regarding Yugov(?)

Although Dimitrov admitted that ‘this was a very difficult story’, his account of it is considerably watered down. He seemed to underestimate the harangue by immediately recounting the lavish and boisterous party Stalin threw after the business part of the meeting was over.139 In fact, the clash was much more personal and violent than Dimitrov related: Stalin stood right in front of the lightly-built Kostov and took the spectacles off his very short-sighted eyes. Stalin asked Kostov what kind of man he was – to which the Bulgarian replied that he was an honest man with an honest attitude to the Soviet Union and all he had intended was better management of the supply of economic data to the Soviets. Stalin’s reaction was to blame Kostov for picking a fight, and to warn there would be no stopping halfway. Nor did Dimitrov record that when the following day Stalin returned to the case, Kostov admitted his errors and was seemingly forgiven. However, Stalin also ridiculed Dimitrov for dealing with big issues but being unaware of what his subordinates did right behind his back.140 Some ten months after the dressing-down Dimitrov had received in the company of the Yugoslavs, this was a second instance of Stalin directly berating him. It was personally highly unpleasant, perhaps the more so as it occurred in the presence of a Polish delegation – possibly a deliberate move by Stalin to demonstrate to the other Eastern Europeans that the Soviets would not tolerate even the slightest hint of a ‘nationalist deviation’. With his experience of the ways of Stalin, Dimitrov must have

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recognised that his anger would have long-standing repercussions for the whole of the Bulgarian party and its leadership. Dimitrov’s handling of the situation confirms key traits of his political character – he made a brief attempt at compromise, but then unquestioningly adhered to the stronger side. In the initial conversation, he did not refute the accusations against Kostov but feebly tried to mollify Stalin, suggesting that a simple misunderstanding had occurred – which would be ‘sorted out’. As Stalin appeared to accept the explanations and admissions, Dimitrov sought to contain the incident by informing the Bulgarian Politburo of the exchange but not proposing any further action. Stalin’s outburst, however, was not as spontaneous as it seemed: the previous spring Ivan Kinov, the Bulgarian Army Chief of Staff and one of many NKVD officers in key state positions in Bulgaria, had already reported that Kostov, along with Interior Minister Yugov and Finance Minister Ivan Stefanov, formed a group which underestimated Soviet help for Bulgaria and embraced the idea of more sovereignty. They were alleged to share much of Tito’s reasoning and sentiment, a proof found in such facts as Tito’s portrait being carried rather prominently and – on one occasion – in front of Stalin’s at the May Day parade.141 It is not obvious whether Dimitrov was updated on the signals against such key figures in his cabinet, but in any case the matter casts a long shadow over his grip on the party and his ability ultimately to steer developments in his country. It was not hard to see that the Kostov case tarnished the image of Dimitrov at the top of the BRP(K) and the state, though it is debatable whether Dimitrov himself was in fact the main target of Stalin’s displeasure. After the Communist takeover in 1944, Dimitrov had specifically and adamantly supported Kostov’s becoming the First Secretary of the BRP(K), at the expense even of the long-serving Kolarov. Dimitrov had claimed that in the Bolshevik manner, prestige and personality should be put aside and the choice governed only by the interests of the party.142 This well-known patronage of the younger and strong-minded Kostov now became a serious drawback for Dimitrov. In the wake of Stalin’s accusations, the alternatives were either to turn against his protégé and so admit his own wrong judgement, or to stand by his earlier convictions and thus antagonise Stalin: precedents inclined towards the former. The middle way that Dimitrov attempted at the December meeting could not hold for very long. It is also certain that Kostov’s accelerated progress up the party ranks had disgruntled many, who now seized upon his disgrace to advance their own careers. Even after Stalin had pointed the finger at Kostov, Dimitrov personally confirmed, immediately after the Fifth Congress of the BRP(K), that Kostov would remain in the CC and carry on with his duties as Dimitrov’s deputy. 143 In essence, Kostov was nominated Dimitrov’s political heir, possibly reasoning that the extending of confidence in him would boost his standing in Stalin’s eyes. Yet it is questionable whether this did Kostov any favours: Stalin was at best unimpressed, while the resentment of Kostov’s domestic rivals increased. The repositioning of forces only intensified in January 1949, when the Communist hierarchy was reorganised and

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Dimitrov assumed the new position of Secretary-General of the CC. Dimitrov’s massive health problems at the same time did not help. As the Soviets soon returned to the question of Kostov’s errors, Dimitrov could no longer hope that the situation would somehow resolve itself, and he now took the initiative by openly denouncing Kostov at the Politburo meeting of 17 February 1949. He readily and at some length portrayed Kostov as the exponent of unhealthy attitudes towards the Soviets, declaring that ‘Kostov’s mistake dominated all other mistakes’ of the party and asking ‘how it was possible’ that Kostov had risen to such a high rank. 144 This was effectively a rhetorical question – no one dared remind him of his own role in Kostov’s progress – yet by posing it Dimitrov was removing his own role from the explanation and attempting to present himself as part of the solution rather than of the problem. A series of meetings were convened to look further into the issue of Kostov’s errors, and once Stalin’s attitude became known, Communist activists competed in condemning their disgraced comrade. Even though Dimitrov was not present at any of the subsequent forums, much of the criticism claimed to be based on his arguments; even Kostov’s alleged attitude to Dimitrov was used as prime evidence for the prosecution. On 7 March 1949, Kolarov recalled Dimitrov’s words at the preceding meeting – that Kostov’s action were obviously anti-Soviet and rooted in his ‘persistent intellectual individualism’. But Kolarov attacked Kostov further in the name of Dimitrov: Kostov had criticised Dimitrov for his authoritarian style of leadership, while himself blatantly disregarding the collective principle. Kostov’s behaviour was compared to that of the ‘left sectarians’ whose words in the wake of the Leipzig Trial had recognised Dimitrov’s role but whose deeds had striven to undermine it. By the end of March 1949, Kostov had performed several increasingly detailed selfcriticisms, including the admission of ‘incorrect attitude to the leader of the party, comrade Dimitrov, which marred his authority as the undisputed and universally acknowledged leader of the party and the state’. Kostov now claimed to accept that ‘fierce class struggle and growing contradiction between the two camps required that the party should unite around the CC and with Dimitrov at its head’. 145 Irrespective of these admissions, he was excluded from CC and relieved of his post as vice-premier in the government. The fact that Stalin reacted to this by a letter claiming that the CC of the VKP(B) had not proposed the demotions and considered the misunderstandings over the trade data resolved seemed to have precisely the opposite effect. On 31 March 1949, Dimitrov suggested that all party privileges should be withdrawn from Kostov, and that all factories and other units bearing his name should be renamed; Kostov would only continue to receive a financial allowance from the CC.146 On 6 April Dimitrov explained that Kostov could not be nominated for any executive position in the economic sphere, such as Director of the National Bank or even of a construction enterprise; he could instead head the National Library or some museum. 147 At that moment some illegal slogans and leaflets appeared hailing Kostov as ‘the brave defender of national interest’ and contrasting him with the ‘Soviet agent’ Dimitrov. 148 It is questionable whether these influenced Dimitrov, who was away from the scene

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resting in the Soviet Union. On the other hand, the acting leaders at home were indeed eager to prove their own credentials to Stalin. To some extent, Dimitrov sent the Politburo mixed messages regarding Kostov: he judged the latter not only extremely able but also necessary to the party, which could not afford to sacrifice him. Simultaneously, however, Dimitrov insisted on full confessions and sincere repentance by his erstwhile right-hand man. Through this he was continuing to try to be seen both to comply with Soviet demands for nipping nationalist tendencies in the bud and not to punish Kostov excessively. It is however debatable to what extent he could have believed that such a compromise would be acceptable to Stalin. It might even be speculated that Dimitrov, who had departed for the Soviet Union for pressing medical reasons, did not have much opportunity to oversee the matter in depth. Although he was updated, he was obviously receiving only basic information in order to be spared mental exertion. And this is precisely the reason why the authenticity of Dimitrov’s last communication regarding Kostov is disputed. In a well-known letter dated 10 May 1949 from his sanatorium Dimitrov once again confirmed that Kostov was a ‘bookish individualist’ and ‘shameless careerist’ as well as an ‘insidious sophisticated crook’. Although this was not saying much new, it did represent the most determined and vicious attack on Kostov to date, as well as opening the way to a formal prosecution for treason. Yet, it is known that shortly before the dispatch of the missive Dimitrov was seriously ill and undergoing exhausting and complicated medical procedures. In such a situation it was easy to manipulate or even falsify his correspondence; indeed no hand-written or even hand-signed draft of the vital letter has been found, and its contents were only revealed after Dimitrov’s death. Some scholars believe that during Dimitrov’s final illness Stalin encouraged Chervenkov to accelerate the process of purging the higher echelons of the Bulgarian party.149 It was logical that with the physical demise of the Bulgarian leader, any contender for his place would first and foremost look for backing from an even higher authority. Chervenkov’s later attack on Kostov was based on allegations of lack of respect for Dimitrov and failure to acknowledge him as leader. This was also confirmed by Terpeshev, who however added the significant insight that at the time most members of the Politburo were uncertain as to Moscow’s position, and thus unwilling to take a firm stance before it was clarified. 150 That such a complex web of suspicions and second-guessing penetrated even the select few at the pinnacle of the Bulgarian leadership is evocative of the atmosphere that Dimitrov had brought to his native party, and cultivated within it. It is in a sense fitting that Kostov’s case – with all the ugly dealings in the Bulgarian party it revealed and the umbilical connections to Moscow it reinforced – was the last politically significant episode in Dimitrov’s leadership.

CONCLUSION WHY MURDER DIMITROV?

Dimitrov reached for his diary for the last time on 6 February 1949: at the end of a week-long bout of infection, he noted briefly that ‘the danger of complications . . . [has] passed’ and his health was ‘improving’.1 But this proved a false hope, as a month later he was flown to Moscow and admitted for intensive care at the Kremlin hospital. The details of the trip are disputed, one security guard claiming that Dimitrov was driven to Sofia airport in an ambulance, his condition so poor that his Bulgarian doctors merely hoped that the more advanced Soviet medicine could alleviate some of the suffering.2 However, another witness recalled that Dimitrov was strong enough, but reluctant to walk to the plane. His premonitions increased, as once on board he was unexpectedly met by Beria, prompting him to tell the head of Politburo security that ‘there is no return from Moscow’.3 This account has been used as proof that Dimitrov sensed some kind of foul play on the part of the Soviets, and feared for his life. In actual fact, the Bulgarian Politburo – and Chervenkov personally – had asked for Soviet help regarding Dimitrov’s health. Another member of the Politburo and various members of Dimitrov’s entourage joined him in the Soviet capital, and later at the Boroviha sanatorium, to assist in his ongoing duties. In the Communists’ habitually secretive manner, the Prime Minister’s absence from Bulgaria was only announced officially more than a month later, in mid-April 1949, after the original crisis had passed. By then many international observers had noticed the sudden halt in Dimitrov’s usual flurry of public activities. Rapidly waning physically, Dimitrov’s mental alertness and capacity for work were limited by the constant pain, the invasive medical procedures and the effects of drugs. However, he was still in constant contact with Sofia, aiming to direct the work of the party and the government, not unlike in his previous absences from the country. Nonetheless, Dimitrov received only a minimal amount of papers and information, and complained that he was not fully updated. But he also admitted that his illness was much more serious than he had initially thought, and that his ‘organism is simply a ruin’.4 It can only be speculated that to some extent his deputies and close associates used his absence as an opportunity to strengthen their own positions in the domestic hierarchy, and to prepare for the leadership contest which was clearly approaching. Throughout his medical confinement Dimitrov sent a stream of telegrams to Sofia, and received a number of Bulgarians on official business in Moscow. He continued signing newspaper articles, including one on ‘Stalin and the International Proletariat’.5 He strove to scrutinise all Bulgarian developments; at the beginning of June he remonstrated with the CC that on two recent separate occasions the usual bêtes noires,

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Dragoicheva and Terpeshev, had been allowed to speak extempore, causing embarrassment. He instructed the CC to vet all its members’ public statements in advance.6 Dimitrov pursued further the matter of the repatriation of Bulgarian émigrés from the Soviet Union.7 This lasting concern contrasted strikingly with his attitude to Traicho Kostov’s fate, the most sensitive and significant issue of the moment. The uncompromising and spiteful letter of 10 May – even if written only on Dimitrov’s behalf – was not particularly out of step with what he had said or done earlier. No personal sentiment was allowed, nor credit awarded for a past record: Dimitrov was driven by the perceived best interests of the party and by his alignment with Soviet views. Whether this reflected his deepest personal conviction, as opposed to shrewd political calculation, is a question whose answer can only be guessed at. One of the major events in Dimitrov’s stay at Boroviha was Stalin’s visit, on 25 June. The august visitor strictly obeyed the advice of the medical staff, spending no more than ten minutes at the patient’s bedside, ostensibly engaged in friendly small talk.8 Nonetheless, Stalin found it appropriate to mention that the old Bulgarian Communist, Terpeshev, should be ousted from the Politburo for being too conceited and gregarious.9 This was the only occasion on which Stalin went to, rather than received, Dimitrov. Some Communists were impressed by such demonstration of respect; others suspected ulterior motives. A team of Soviet medical luminaries, many of them well-acquainted with Dimitrov’s condition, looked after him. Their daily observations were provided to the Bulgarian Politburo. These reveal that over the four months after leaving Bulgaria the leader’s health was fast deteriorating and that indeed only the exceptional therapeutic intervention kept Dimitrov alive as long as it did. In addition to his chronic heart and liver conditions, in early May an aggressive abdominal cancer was diagnosed. He was subjected to punishing weekly punctures to alleviate some of the painful symptoms, but active treatment was not available. After 27 June a series of internal haemorrhages precipitated a virtual collapse – despite several blood transfusions. On 1 July, Dimitrov lost consciousness, and died the following day.10 Dimitrov’s body lay in state in the Kremlin, Stalin taking his turn to stand guard. A special train then carried the coffin to Sofia, frequently stopping en route for hastilystaged mourning rallies. A second lying in state, followed by lavish obsequies, took place in Sofia. The casket was eventually placed in a newly-built mausoleum, which was draped with giant red flags covering the unfinished facade. For the imposing edifice the Politburo had commissioned an architect who had served a spell in a ‘corrective’ camp as an opponent of the regime. The choice of location was powerful, and deeply symbolic, as the mausoleum faced the former royal palace, now converted into an art gallery, where Dimitrov’s first statue had stood after 1944. The basic construction was completed in six days, although work continued much longer on the elaborate systems of underground tunnels and chambers necessary for preserving the mummified body of the leader. The whole concept was a Moscow-sanctioned emulation of the Soviet example, with the clear implication that Dimitrov was Bulgaria’s Lenin. If Stalin was involved in Dimitrov’s death, he still considered it useful

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to send him off with all due pomp and circumstance, and thus perpetuate the myth of Dimitrov as a great Communist leader. For several years the mausoleum was run by Soviet specialists, who transferred it to Bulgarians trained in-house in 1955. Elite military guards stood at the entrance, in the corridors and at the sides of the glass-top coffin. Foreign delegations laid wreaths, school children visited on day trips and compulsory parades took place in the big square outside, while the strongmen of the day waved from the balcony for hours on end and then relaxed in the specially-equipped premises underground. All this carried on for exactly 40 years, until the sudden demise of Communist rule in Bulgaria. On 18 July 1990 Dimitrov’s son Boyko, by agreement with the authorities, secretly transferred the body to the family plot in the Sofia cemetery, where it was buried. In August 1999, the empty tomb itself was destroyed – but only at the second attempt: the initial quantity of explosive used had been insufficient – the precise specifications of the mausoleum, which had been built to double as an atomic-bomb shelter, were not available. Apart from causing some political embarrassment to the new politicians keen on erasing the most obnoxious monuments to Communism, the episode was also a symbolic reminder that its legacy should be examined and understood, not just physically discarded and forgotten. In any such process a scrutiny of Dimitrov’s role and political persona is pivotal. With the politicised debate about the fate of the mausoleum and the private burial of the mummy, rumours of Dimitrov’s murder resurfaced. These were most persistently disseminated in the press, but also filtered into more serious publications, despite the plentiful, specific and well-documented details of Dimitrov’s long-term health problems, including the fatal complications. The version most circulated was that he had been poisoned with mercury, a lethal dose of which had been placed in a hidden compartment of his desk at the sanatorium. In the eyes of the general public, this was sensationally confirmed when in somewhat obscure circumstances a chemical analysis at the Sofia Institute of Criminology claimed to have detected abnormal levels of the substance in what allegedly were the remains of the Bulgarian Communist. 11 Alternative stories emerged, including one which blamed a vengeful Tito.12 Irina Chervenkova, Dimitrov’s niece, has categorically refuted the suggestion that Dimitrov died from anything other than his various diseases. 13 The popular inclination to believe that Dimitrov was murdered on Stalin’s orders draws mainly on the image of the Soviet dictator as a paranoiac who destroyed friends as often as enemies. While that image is certainly not inaccurate, the case for Dimitrov’s murder can be supported by at least one of two logically connected assumptions. It is claimed that Stalin benefited from Dimitrov’s removal from the political scene, which in turn is explained by the thesis that Dimitrov had demonstrated signs of independent thinking and had deviated from Soviet policy in the establishment of Communism in Bulgaria. These are relatively recent interpretations; interestingly, they nonetheless tie in well with the received wisdom of Communist historiography, which asserted that Bulgaria was only stalinised under Dimitrov’s successor Chervenkov. From the day it first took power, the BRP(K) sought to implement the Soviet experience – which could only mean Stalinist-type politics, economy and society –

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even though as a whole it accepted the initial limitations imposed by the armistice regime and the necessity of a coalition government. The process accelerated in mid1947 after the conclusion of the Peace Treaty, the founding of the Cominform and the accompanying intensification of the Cold War. By the time of Dimitrov’s death – and certainly under his active leadership – the once-again-renamed BKP had been guided by Moscow into a monopoly of power; during his final illness the country was further bound within the Soviet bloc through the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance set up in early 1949. All this directly contributed to the security and stability of Stalin’s sphere of influence. Conversely, if indeed Stalin benefited in any way from Dimitrov’s elimination, Chervenkov stood to gain much more – he soon laid claim to the top party and government position in Bulgaria. He had already played a key part in Kostov’s demise; and if motives are to be sought for murdering Dimitrov, it is obvious that his death opened opportunities for the younger generation of Communist leaders in Bulgaria, especially those moulded by long exile in the Soviet Union. It was clearly within Stalin’s ability and consistent with his mentality to order Dimitrov’s murder. Nonetheless, it was clear to all who came in contact with the Bulgarian leader in early 1949 that his end was approaching. Over the previous two years Dimitrov had spent considerable time in the USSR and could have been ‘dealt with’ before his allegedly unsanctioned behaviour escalated. It would be very difficult to argue that Stalin waited until a pattern of disloyalty was evident in order to strike. With his encyclopaedia of acute ailments, it is in fact conceivable that Dimitrov had for some time been kept alive by the best of Soviet medicine. While various logistical issues could be raised, it is worth asking why the Bulgarian was not murdered in his own country, something that could have been easily arranged. Those who suspect foul play would find it hard not to acknowledge that ‘Soviet specialists’ would have had no difficulty in using their chosen weapon within Dimitrov’s own home. Dimitrov, just like the majority of Communists of his generation world-wide, saw the Soviet Union as the most desirable political and economic model and Soviet expertise as indispensable in the exercise of power by local Communists. There was no moment in his work that can be construed as acting against Soviet interests or actively and consistently contradicting Stalin’s directives. While he did not follow a predetermined plan of action – either as head of the Comintern or in his capacity of national leader – he never hesitated as to the ultimate objective: Communism was a clear and enduring goal, and no tactical adjustments made it less relevant for Dimitrov’s theorising, propaganda and practice. When Milovan Djilas portrayed Dimitrov as someone who paid due respect to Stalin but did his own thinking,14 he did not have enough details to observe that Dimitrov’s conclusions and actions were unfailingly in tune with Stalin’s views and preferences. Some authors who suspect Stalin’s hand in Dimitrov’s end also promote the view that the reason was revenge for challenges posed by Dimitrov. The three concepts linked to Dimitrov’s name – the popular front, Balkan federation and people’s democracy – are most often presented as areas of disagreement with Stalin. Through these there is a distinct attempt to sketch a milder image of Dimitrov, as an original Marxist thinker and even a ‘national’ Communist, and thus rescue him from the

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gallery of the fanatical, violent and subservient Eastern-European ‘Stalins’. For some, such an interpretation contributes to partial rehabilitation of the Communist ideal; for others, it fits oddly well with the desire to throw a more positive light on the history of Communism, and of Bulgarian Communism in particular.

* * * Shortly before his death Dimitrov confided in Georgi Chankov, the Bulgarian Politburo member attached to him in his last months in the USSR, that he would not write a political testament. Confident in his historic role, he believed that his whole life should be seen as a shining example for the next generations of Communists. However, from his deathbed he made two specific pronouncements, insisting that the party should think more of the working class and that it should purge itself from unreliable elements.15 Both of these represented key aspects of his long political career: Dimitrov had been instrumental in the transformation of the Bulgarian Social Democrats into a revolutionary proletarian party and had consistently worked for its Bolshevisation. Indeed, these were the elements which determined his affinity to the Soviet model and in turn secured him the support of Moscow. Interestingly, while later in his professional revolutionary activity he used every opportunity to claim ideological kinship with the Bolsheviks, Georgi Dimitrov was the first prominent Bulgarian Socialist who had no early association with the Russian Socialist movement. As part of the second generation of Bulgarian Socialist leaders, he matured in a period when the party was uniquely focused on its internal developments, and free from overbearing outside influences. With his lowly social origins, minimal formal schooling and unorthodox family background, he could not have differed more from the intellectuals who first spread Socialism in Bulgaria. Yet his boisterous personality and youthful experience of waged labour not only attracted him to the Marxist movement but also made him well suited to the demands of a growing party targeting the working class. Dimitrov was a self-made politician whose organisational skills and ideological zeal made him an asset to the Bulgarian Socialists, mired as they were in continuous internal political strife. Dimitrov’s early activity drew strength from the growth of the Bulgarian working class in both numbers and political awareness, and it was not a coincidence that for 20 years after entering active politics, Dimitrov remained first and foremost a syndicalist leader. His advance from a printer’s apprentice strike-leader to local trade unionist to a Social Democrat functionary charted the increasing interest of the small Bulgarian working class in political participation. For the BRSDP(N) Dimitrov was the right person at the right place and the right time: the benefits were mutual. To a large extent, his early political advance embodied the Marxist ideal of the increasingly politically alert and educated worker. Gaining prominence at local and parliamentary level in the years before the First World War, Dimitrov impersonated the gradual transition of the future Communist Party from an isolated elite clique to an organisation actively involving ordinary people. One of the greatest intellectual influences on Dimitrov was his first wife Ljubica, who supported and inspired him in his work and self-education. Tragically, she was

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increasingly frustrated with her own involvement in the trade-union movement and in campaigning for women’s rights. Her personal insecurities and dissatisfaction with everyday aspects of leftist politics emerged strongly in the latter 1910s, just as Dimitrov’s confidence and ambition grew. On the other hand, it is difficult to see any of the older Bulgarian Socialists as Dimitrov’s spiritual mentors. His predecessors were philosophers in the broadest sense of the word, continuously interested in the intellectual challenges posed by Marxism as well as in its political implementation. Dimitrov was strongly impressed by the veritable fanaticism of Blagoev. Without ever being personally close to him, Dimitrov was unwaveringly loyal to him at all critical junctures, something of no small importance in a party chronically ridden with ideological controversies which often transformed into personal rivalries. In the three consecutive splits among the Social Democrats in Bulgaria, Dimitrov firmly remained on the side of the radical and purist founder of the party. Respect and support for the leader became an unspoken personal rule from which Dimitrov hardly deviated throughout his political life. Despite his fascination with the written word, in his early period in Bulgaria Dimitrov was predominantly a man of action. His strength was the ability to empathise with ordinary workers, and to stimulate them into becoming disciplined members of the trade unions. Possessing the common touch, he was a highly effective and inspiring practitioner, capturing the energy and the grievances of industrial workers, as he did in building strong support for the Narrow Socialists among such strategic occupations as miners and port workers. Indeed, through the grassroots campaigns he also gradually acquired a group of younger followers who were personally bound to him and whose advancement in the party hierarchy he unwaveringly supported. Close associates such as Stanke Dimitrov, Anton Ivanov and Ferdinand Kozovski closely followed in Dimitrov’s most important footsteps, from the September Uprising in 1923 to the Comintern; their faith in and dependence on Dimitrov saw them charged with carrying out his directives, including the purges of Comintern cadres. In the years after the First World War Dimitrov’s policies and attitudes marked a clear shift to the left; while he did not question Blagoev’s lack of interest in the Soldiers’ Uprising, he was the main initiator of the Transport Strike. Of utmost significance was his decision to launch the September Uprising of 1923, following the prescriptions of the Third International: this was the first and only instance of unapologetically disregarding the party leader, and contradicting most of the older CC members. Such revolutionary reorientation was consistent with Dimitrov’s active radical preferences, and in tune with the Comintern’s response to what it believed was a general crisis of capitalist society. It is plausible that the choice was equally motivated by personal as well as ideological considerations: it constituted a bid for the leadership of the party which, although benefiting from a general turning to the left, had been undermined by the rise and demise of Stamboliyski’s Agrarian rule. It is worth highlighting that Dimitrov only registered dissent with the Bulgarian CC in order to follow the guidance of the higher authority of the Comintern. The detail was most important as the September adventure became a major source of severe and prolonged

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internal struggle which, in a bitter irony, Dimitrov survived precisely because of his good record with the Comintern, which had tempted him in the first place into taking that difficult position. Throughout the exile in Central Europe, when a considerable portion of his energy was devoted to preserving his self-appointed post at the Foreign Bureau and fighting his detractors, he was continually boosted by Moscow’s backing. Immediately after fleeing Bulgaria, Dimitrov started a massive damage-limitation campaign by refusing to acknowledge that the uprising had been a grave error. Passing over the reasons for the failure, he instead trumpeted promises of ‘learning from mistakes’ and ‘carrying on with the fight’. Dimitrov elaborated two major points of interpretation: he labelled the uprising ‘the first mass anti-fascist act’ in the world, and explained the defeat with the formula that the Bulgarian Communists had not proved ‘sufficiently Leninist’.16 This allowed Dimitrov to cast himself in the role of the radical and far-seeing champion of Bolshevism and to reiterate his adherence to the strategic vision of the Comintern; and it cannot be ignored that in terms of political recognition and financial support Dimitrov was utterly dependent for his survival on the Comintern. The Third International too had a vested interest in calling the September events of 1923 anything but a complete and utter failure, especially since for a time it continued to uphold the revolutionary course. Eventually, the uprising became a pivotal element of Communist mythology: it provided the party with a revolutionary past, creating heroes from the leaders and martyrs from the victims. Leaving Bulgaria put an end to a dynamic phase of Dimitrov’s life and severed his links with rank-and-file support. This put a significant strain on his position within the party, where those who remained in the country bore the brunt of the uprising’s consequences, and left the leadership divided as to the way ahead. The terrorist act of 16 April 1925 aggravated the situation as the Bulgarian authorities seized the opportunity to decimate the Communists who plunged into the deepest crisis. In the light of contradictory evidence Dimitrov’s role in the cathedral blast is subject to debate: at best he did not categorically forbid the outrage, couching his de facto agreement in convoluted statements about mass mobilisation. At worst he supported the plot but managed later to claim – with Marek’s compliance – that his opinion had been erroneously transmitted. Among much else, this episode is perhaps the most blatant example of Dimitrov’s ability to wriggle out of responsibility, a skill he later perfected. By the time Dimitrov faced the German court in 1933, his standing in the BKP(N) had deteriorated immensely, under relentless attacks by his ‘young’ rivals. He was reduced to a middle-rank Comintern functionary, increasingly distant from his native country and little more than an observer of the fast-changing political realities in Europe. Then, accidental though it was, being arrested and charged with starting the Reichstag Fire plucked him from obscurity and allowed him to appear on the world stage. Dimitrov well understood the political nature of the trial, and judged correctly that a similarly political defence constituted his only chance for acquittal. On previous occasions Dimitrov had demonstrated little concern for his own safety, and his performance at Leipzig was inspired predominantly by a desire to prove his personal integrity and political credo, both under attack. His self-defence was that not only of a

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man fighting against prime ideological adversaries but also of one finally able to vindicate his political identity after the frustrations of a decade spent in the Communist political wilderness. Proving in this way his worth for Moscow was a risk he was willing to take. His biggest advantage was the sympathy of the foreign media which also fed into the somewhat unexpected success of the international campaign in his defence taken up by Communist front organisations. This attracted support from a wide political spectrum, where a variety of players had their own motives for helping promote Dimitrov’s name as a symbol of anti-fascism. Even if there had been contacts between Stalin and Hitler regarding the fate of the accused at Leipzig – and this, predictably, is supported by no solid evidence – the trial’s outcome could not be taken for granted. It is hard to conceive that Goering and Goebbels would have exposed themselves to Dimitrov’s ridicule knowing that he would in any event be released, or that Dimitrov would have deliberately quarrelled with the judges if his acquittal was secure. The last-minute confusion and delay regarding his extradition from Germany may also suggest that the Soviet authorities had no fixed plans. On the other hand, despite their fierce ideological collision, the Nazis and Soviets would both have benefited from a gesture of good will: Dimitrov’s and his Bulgarian comrades’ release, and the reciprocal return of the German engineers held in Soviet custody, were steps in this direction. Dimitrov’s provocative and passionate self-defence and praise of Communism attracted Stalin’s attention to someone he had previously hardly known. Stalin appreciated the impressive levels of stamina and conviction that Dimitrov had shown, but more importantly Stalin claimed some of Dimitrov’s reflected glory. By promoting him, Stalin rewarded bravery and ambition and injected new vigour into the wayward Comintern. The price to Dimitrov was personal loyalty and lack of political independence, as evident from the first discussions between him and the Soviet leader on the Austrian affairs. Nonetheless, this was a situation which Dimitrov, or any other Communist at the time, would have considered entirely natural. Gaining power and status, Dimitrov was comfortable with the notion of personal allegiance to Stalin; the idea that the Comintern would have to account for the foreign-policy considerations of the Soviet Union was not new either, although it acquired added significance with the recent changes in the European balance of power. Furthermore, Dimitrov’s leadership of the Comintern was also guided by the necessities of Soviet domestic policy: it was an accepted truth among international Communists at the time that the primacy of the Soviet Union was an integral part of the idea of revolution. Accordingly, the analysis of Dimitrov’s contribution to the popular front and his complicity in the Great Purge cannot be isolated from one another – they reveal different aspects of complex political beliefs and behaviour. Dimitrov cannot claim all the credit for the innovation of the popular front. He was not propelled to the top of the Comintern because he suggested a new strategic direction; he began exploring the possibility for change after he took the reins of the international movement. He impressed Stalin with his resilience, caution and eagerness to coordinate with the Kremlin: the fiery revolutionary transformed into a Soviet bureaucrat. Dimitrov proceeded incrementally with the elaboration of his new theses,

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making certain that they reflected both recent developments in key European countries and the Soviet leadership’s views. He well understood the mentality and mechanism of decision-making in the Soviet Union. Dimitrov’s observation in 1934 that the confrontation with Social Democrats was altogether detrimental to the Communists’ immediate objectives was quite distant from the eventual policy of broad centre-left collaboration which emerged from the postulates of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935. Furthermore, to a large extent it was events on the ground, particularly in France, that provided the impetus for the alteration of tactics. Dimitrov was highly visible in the preparation and presentation of the popularfront project, managing the working committees which formulated the concept and delivering the congress report on the danger of fascism and the need for working-class unity. Ultimately, he monitored the policy’s implementation by the member parties, his instructions being either explicitly approved by the Soviet leaders or reflecting his understanding of their opinions. Steering foreign Communist parties from the mid1930s through the Second World War, including dealing with the Spanish Republic, Dimitrov kept to the parameters of policy established by Stalin. Dimitrov’s directives were unfailingly overruled in cases where he had overstepped or misunderstood his mandate, as for instance in his swift reversal over the ‘Sobolev action’ in Bulgaria in 1940. As the Secretary-General of the Comintern and later a Soviet deputy Dimitrov was a distinguished member of the Soviet political elite, and thus bound by the policies and practices of the Soviet state. Nowhere was this better reflected than in his attitude to the terror that overwhelmed Soviet society in the latter part of the 1930s. Of course, inter-party struggles had consumed a great deal of Dimitrov’s energy in his ‘national’ period, when dissenters were ruthlessly ostracised. In the Soviet Union he witnessed the ongoing vigilance campaigns of a regime certain that it would be constantly threatened by open and covert class enemies, until the proletariat prevailed universally. Overtly, Dimitrov accepted the logic and methods of the Purge, convinced of the treason, and therefore the necessity of the physical elimination, of numerous popular and high-ranking Bolsheviks. Moreover, he presided over a massive, prolonged and brutal inspection of Comintern cadres, which resulted in huge numbers demoted or transferred for further investigation to the NKVD. On occasion he even personally recalled foreign Communists to Moscow, fully aware of the fate that awaited them at the hands of the security apparatus. In certain examples it is hard to distinguish between the general pressures undoubtedly felt by Dimitrov to contribute to the cleansing of Soviet society, and more personal motives: the extermination of both genuine and falsely-accused Bulgarian Trotskyites illuminates the intricacy of the issue. Whether Dimitrov was driven by fear or by fervour against the alleged traitors is also almost impossible to ascertain; and in fact this may not be the most pertinent issue, as the result of either motive was the same. His later efforts to secure the release of some victims were similarly underpinned by a thorny mix of human and political factors, but never amounted to questioning the process by which these people had been imprisoned in the first place. Moreover, after the war, as the leader of the dominant party in Bulgarian politics and then Prime Minister, Dimitrov sanctioned various forms of

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violence, from the so-called ‘revolutionary retribution’ immediately after 9 September 1944 to the People’s Courts and then the brutal eradication of the Opposition. His role in the Kostov affair – occurring at a moment when Dimitrov was clearly very ill but had achieved all his own ambitions – also threw retrospective light on his behaviour during the Purge and his acceptance of the philosophy of revolutionary terror. During the war the Bulgarian Communists – not unlike most Communist parties – enjoyed limited and short-lived independence. Directives from Dimitrov were willingly carried out, even if the local leadership had to adjust its policy when differences of opinion arose as a result of delays in communication or incorrect interpretation. As elsewhere, Dimitrov, in his capacity of head of the war-time Comintern, acted as a mediator and enforcer of Soviet priorities; this is clearly proven by the very formal dissolution of the international organisation. Communist resistance on the ground was further undermined, first because it was not fully updated on Soviet strategic planning and then because it was overshadowed by the advances of the Soviet army, which brought exiles from Moscow in its wake. The Soviet occupation of the former Axis satellites, and the establishment of Communist-led coalitions in the Soviet zone of influence, marked the end of Dimitrov’s career as a political player of any international significance. His dependence on Moscow remained constant, but his return to Bulgaria brought his political journey full circle – on the one hand his role was diminished to national dimensions, but on the other it signalled a distinct radicalisation of policy. Very evidently, Dimitrov never really treated the Fatherland Front as a genuine coalition of equal partners, and throughout 1945 the Bulgarian Communists continuously hardened their attitude to the political forces which eventually joined the Opposition. Even Dimitrov was not fully capable of maintaining the intricate balancing act that required the preservation of a broad leftist coalition with a strengthening of the Communists’ hold over society and the economy. In this he was guided personally by Stalin, as is clear from the episode of the postponed elections and the ‘Moscow decision’. Subsequently, Dimitrov oversaw the intensification of Bulgaria’s economic reforms and the absorption of the country in the emerging Communist bloc. It is paradoxical that the one idea Dimitrov resurrected from his pre-Soviet period, namely the Balkan federation, caused him serious troubles at several levels. It led him into competing with Tito for Stalin’s favour and forced him to make concessions over the Bulgarian part of Macedonia, which had long-term and traumatic domestic repercussions. Thus, as even his personal prestige seemed to be challenged by his confident former subordinate, Dimitrov was possibly looking to a larger EasternEuropean configuration precisely as a counterbalance to Tito’s ambitions. This in turn led him into declarations which were uncharacteristically not coordinated with the Soviets. Yet crucially, and in contrast to Tito, Dimitrov ultimately fell into step with the Kremlin. However radical in his long-term preferences, he did not hesitate to backtrack and seek absolution when found lacking in his actions and understanding. He followed the Soviet tactical meandering on this issue too, regardless of the damage to his pride and ideas. A similar pattern emerged in the course of his theoretical efforts

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to define people’s democracy, the transitional system of government installed in Eastern Europe after the Second World War. Dimitrov’s major predicament arose from the fact that while he was trying to explain the meaning of people’s democracy in the vocabulary of Marxism, politics in the Soviet sphere had moved on: he was left to describe on paper an evolving reality. Ironically, while in February 1948 Dimitrov was castigated for offering too radical a vision for South-Slav federation, the following December he had to abandon a relatively moderate version of people’s democracy which had relied too much on continuity with the war-time policy of the popular front. As Dimitrov presided over the sovietisation of Bulgaria, his report to the Fifth Congress of the BKP(N) was striving to reconcile deeds and words. The key to understanding much of Dimitrov’s behaviour is that he did not distinguish between national objectives and Soviet priorities in the same way as a disinterested onlooker would. That is why in the final years of his life he was often in the position of a renowned international figure and senior national statesman who constantly double-checked his own steps for compliance with current and long-term Soviet interests. Personally he was sometimes frustrated, politically he invariably adjusted his views and actions because he understood better than anyone that without Soviet support, his and his party’s existence would be dramatically altered. If Stalin was at times dissatisfied with Dimitrov, it could have been for errors, misunderstandings and wrong guesses – not for contradicting, undermining or challenging his authority in the world of Communism.

ENDNOTES

Introduction 1. S. Blagoeva, Dimitroff: aus dem Leben eines Revolutionärs (Moscow, 1934). 2. M. Barumova, Zhivot za Naroda (Sofia, 1963); V. Hadjinikolov, D. Elazar, D. Michev, L. Panayotov and P. Radenkova, Georgi Dimitrov. Biografichen Ocherk (Sofia, 1980); E. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov. Letopis za Zhivota i Revolyutsionnata Mu Deynost (Sofia, 1982). The only apparent outcome of the controlled liberalisation in the late 1980s was G. Naumov, Atentatut v Katedralata Sv. Nedelya. (Sofia, 1989). 3. J. D. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party from Blagoev to Zhivkov (Stanford, CA, 1985); J. Rothschild, The Communist Party of Bulgaria: Origins and Development, 1883–1936 (New York, 1972); N. Oren, Revolution Administered: Agrarianism and Communism in Bulgaria (Baltimore, MD, 1973); N. Oren, Bulgarian Communism: The Road to Power, 1934–1944 (New York, 1971). 4. P. Semerdjiev, BKP, Makedonskiyat Vupros i VMRO (Detroit, MI, 1994); P. Semerdjiev, Dimitrov and the Comintern: Myth and Reality (Jerusalem, 1976); P. Semerdjiev, Narodniyat Sud v Bulgaria 1944–1945g. Komu i Zashto E Bil Neobhodim (Jerusalem, 1997); P. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya i Suvetskiyat Suyuz v Sudbata na Bulgaria (Jerusalem, Vol. 2, 2003). 5. M. Issussov, Poslednata Godina na Traicho Kostov (Sofia, 1990); J. Baev, ‘Imalo li e sdelka mezhdu Gestapo i GPU za sudbata na obvinyaemite bulgari v Layptsigskiya Protses?’, Kontinent, 225 (27 September 1993), p. 9; J. Baev, ‘Istinata za edno pismo’, Uchitelsko Delo, 5 (31 January 1990), pp. 1, 7; D. Daskalov, Zhan Suobshtava. Zadgranichnoto Byuro i Antifashistkata Borba v Bulgaria 1941–44g. (Sofia, 1991); A. Lilov, ‘120 godini ot rozhdenieto na Georgi Dimitrov’, Ponedelnik, 7–8 (2002), pp. 5– 34; F. Hristov, Georgi Dimitrov – Bezsmurten Sin na Planetata. Zhivot, Deynost, Borba (Sofia, 2003). 6. G. Chankov, Ravnosmetkata (Sofia, 2000); G. Gergov, Istinata za Mavzoleya (Sofia, 2001); L. Varadinov, Vulkanichen Chovek (Sofia, 2002); I. Vinarov, Boytsi na Tihiya Front. Spomeni na Razuznavacha (Sofia, 1988). 7. V. Chervenkov, Za Sebe Si i Svoeto Vreme (Sofia, 2000). 8. N. Ganchovski, Dnite na Dimitrov, Kakvito Gi Vidyah i Zapisah (Sofia, 2002). 9. R. Georgieva, ‘Dimitrov bil otroven ot Tito, no dokazatelstva lipsvat’, 168 Chasa, 9 (3 March 1992), p. 22; M. Semkov, ‘V Layptsig – luzhi, lyubov i muzhestvo’, Trud, 339 (3 December 2003), p. 20; A. Vekov, ‘Kak Dimitrov i Kolarov spasiha Sofia’, Duma, 6 (10 January 2004), p. 6. 10. B. Dimitrov, ‘Kum chitatelya’, in D. Sirkov, P. Boev, N. Avreyski and E. Kabakchieva (eds.), Georgi Dimitrov. Dnevnik (9 mart 1933–6 fevruari 1949) (Sofia, 1997), pp. 7–10. 11. G. Gergov, Obrugavaneto na Dimitrov (Sofia, 2003). 12. M. Issussov, Stalin i Bulgaria (Sofia, 1991); M. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov – Zhiznen Put i Politicheski Idei (Sofia, 2004); R. Kanatsieva and T. Turlakova (eds.), Georgi Dimitrov mezhdu Vuzhvalata i Otritsanieto (Sofia, 2003). 13. V. Kolev, ‘Mitut za neutraliteta na BKP kum prevrata na 9 yuni 1923’, in M. Radeva (ed.), Istoriya i Mitove (Sofia, 1999), pp. 95–105; J. Baev ‘Sotsialdemokratsiya i antifashizum: klyuchovi dilemi v otnosheniyata mezhdu Stalin i Dimitrov mezhdu dvete svetovni voyni’, in Kanatsieva and Turlakova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 56–70; Naumov, Atentatut. 14. N. Poppetrov, ‘Georgi Dimitrov kato obekt na integralen izsledovatelski podhod’, in Kanatsieva and Turlakova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 159–71. 15. L. Revyakina, L. Stoyanov, V. Milachkov, R. Grishina and N. Lebedeva (eds.), Kominternut i Bulgaria (mart 1919–septemvri 1944g.) (Sofia, 2 Vols. 2005); Ts. Bilyarski and I. Burilkova (eds.), BKP, Kominternut i Makedonskiyat Vupros (1879–1946g.) (Sofia, 2 Vols. 1998, 1999).

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16. V. Mar’ina and L. Milyakova (eds.), Totalitarism. Istoricheskiy Opyt Vostochnoy Evropy. ‘Demokraticheskoe Intermezzo’ s Kommunisticheskim Finalom, 1944–1948g. (Moscow, 2002); A. Chubaryan, N. Lebedeva, G. Adibekov, Ya. Drabkin, N. Kalmykov, N. Komolova, S. Pozharskaya and G. Dobrosel’skaya (eds.), Istoriya Kommunisticheskogo Internatsionala 1919–1943g. Dokumental’nyie Ocherki (Moscow, 2002); T. Volokitina, T. Islamov, G. Murashko, A. Noskova and L. Rogovaya (eds.), Vostochnaya Evropa v Dokumentah Rossiyskih Arhivov 1944–1953g. (Moscow, Vol. 1 (1944–1948g.), 1997); N. Lebedeva, M. Narinskiy, K. Anderson and A. Chubaryan (eds.), Komintern i Vtoraya Mirovaya Voyna (Moscow, 2 Vols. 1994, 1998). 17. L. Gibianskii, ‘The Soviet–Yugoslav conflict and the Soviet bloc’, in F. Gori and S. Pons (eds.), The Soviet Union and Europe in the Cold War, 1943–53 (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 222–45; J. Perović, ‘The Tito–Stalin split: a reassessment in light of new evidence’, Journal of Cold War Studies, 9/2 (2007), pp. 32–63. 18. A. Praźmowska, Civil War in Poland (Basingstoke, 2004). 19. V. Dimitrov, Stalin’s Cold War: Soviet Foreign Policy, Democracy and Communism in Bulgaria, 1941–48 (Basingstoke, 2008). 20. A. Dallin and F. Firsov (eds.), Dimitrov and Stalin 1934–1943: Letters from the Soviet Archives (Yale, CT, 2000). 21. Ibid, p. xviii. 22. I. Banac (ed.), The Diary of Georgi Dimitrov (New Haven, CT, 2003), pp. xv–xlviii. 23. W. Chase, Enemies within the Gates: The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934–39 (New Haven, CT, 2001). 24. R. Levy, Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist (Berkeley, CA, 2001). 25. L. Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii na Balkanite, 1923–1931g. (Sofia, 2003). 26. Chase, Enemies Within; J. Baev, ‘Georgi Dimitrov i sudbata na bulgarskata politemigratsiya v godinite na stalinskite represii’, in V. Toshkova, L. Revyakina, S. Pintev and L. Stoyanov (eds.), Bulgaria v Sferata na Suvetskite Interesi (Sofia, 1998), pp. 339–48; E. Valeva, ‘Repressii protiv bolgarskih politemigrantov v SSSR i Komintern’, in Toshkova et al, Bulgaria v Sferata, pp. 327–38. 27. L. Gibianskii, ‘The Soviet–Yugoslav split’, in M. Stibbe and K. McDermott (eds.), Revolution and Resistance in Eastern Europe: Challenges to Communist Rule (Oxford, 2006), pp. 17–36; J. Perović, ‘The Tito–Stalin split’. 28. N. Avreyski, Georgi Dimitrov i Revolyutsionnoto Dvizhenie v Kitay (Sofia, 1987). 29. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 13 June 1939.

Chapter One 1. Dates follow the Julian calendar until 31 March 1916 when the Gregorian one was adopted. 2. Barumova, Zhivot, p. 6. 3. Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 13. 4. Barumova, Zhivot, p. 12. 5. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 51. 6. Barumova, Zhivot, p. 10. 7. S. Blagoeva, Georgi Dimitrov: A Biography (London, 1961), pp. 12–13; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 14–15. 8. Y. Yotov, V. Topencharov, V. Hadjinikolov, D. Elazar, T. Koleva, D. Sirkov and M. Chervendineva (eds.), Georgi Dimitrov. Suchineniya (Sofia, 16 Vols. 1981–90), Vol. 11, p. 322. 9. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 37; V. Ilieva, ‘Bludniyat sin koito nikoga ne se zavurna’, at www.mediapool.bg, accessed 23 March 2007. 10. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 44. 11. Tsentralen Partien Arhiv (TsPA – Central Party Archive), f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 27. 12. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 38 13. H. Hristov, S. Gruncharov and E. Statelova (eds.), Istoriya na Bulgaria (Sofia, Vol. 7, 1991), p. 380; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 15.

ENDNOTES

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14. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 49; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 42; M. Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov: Une Biographie Critique’ (Unpublished PhD, Institut d’études politiques, Paris, 2004), p. 69. 15. Hristov et al, Istoriya na Bulgaria, p. 382. 16. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 1, pp. 37–40. 17. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 19–21. 18. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 1, pp. 35–6. 19. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 46. 20. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 42–3; Hristov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 9, 18–19; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 16. 21. Barumova, Zhivot, p. 23. 22. TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 27. 23. Rothschild, The Communist Party, pp. 1–2. 24. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 11. 25. D. Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism (New York, 1996), pp. 16–25. 26. Rothschild, The Communist Party, pp. 32, 34. 27. Hristov et al, Istoriya na Bulgaria, pp. 137–8, 189; J. Lampe, The Bulgarian Economy in the Twentieth Century (London, 1986), pp. 35–42. 28. D. Michev, P. Radenkova and M. Chervendineva (eds.), Spomeni za Georgi Dimitrov (Sofia, 3 Vols. 1982), Vol. 1, p. 66; K. Vassilev, ‘Zhenata koyato izluchvashe svetlina’, Duma, 5 June 2001, p. 13. 29. Ilieva, ‘Bludniyat sin’. 30. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 1, pp. 41–8. 31. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 50; Hristov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 19. 32. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 1, p. 53. 33. Ibid, pp. 58–9. 34. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 52. 35. Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 21; L. Revyakina, ‘Georgi Dimitrov v bulgarskoto i mezhdunarodnoto komunistichesko dvizhenie 1919–1934g.’, in Kanatsieva and Turlakova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 5. 36. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 1, p. 57. 37. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 52. 38. A. Vekov, ‘Vassil Kolarov v istoriyata na bulgarskiya sotsialism’, Ponedelnik, 1–2 (2002), pp. 77–8. 39. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 53. 40. E. Statelova and S. Gruncharov, Istoriya na Nova Bulgaria 1878–1944 (Sofia, 1999), pp. 189, 205. 41. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 1, pp. 145–55. 42. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, ae. 305, l. 2. 43. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 1, p. 53. 44. Gergov, Obrugavaneto, p. 11–13. 45. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 305, l. 9. 46. H. Kulichev, Vestiteli na Istinata (Sofia, 1994), p. 268. 47. D. Genchev, Purvoapostolite na Ideala (Sofia, 2006), p. 67. 48. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 2, pp. 73–105. 49. Ibid, pp. 113–15. 50. Ibid, Vol. 3, pp. 83, 150. 51. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 59. 52. A. Vekov, L. Revyakina and V. Toshkova (eds.), Vassil Kolarov. Statii, Dnevnitsi, Rechi, Pisma, Spomeni. Izbrani Proizvedeniya, Vol. 1 (Sofia, 2001), p. 138. 53. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 607, l. 65; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 77. 54. Ibid, p. 83; G. Haupt, Socialism and the Great War (Oxford, 1972), pp. 68–9.

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55. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 55. 56. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 131–2. 57. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 53; Revyakina, ‘Georgi Dimitrov v bulgarskoto’, p. 5. 58. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 3, pp. 110–14, 333–8. 59. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 166. 60. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 3, pp. 453–66. 61. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 167. 62. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 3, pp. 90–2. 63. A. Vekov (ed.), Vassil Kolarov. Pobedi i Porazheniya. Dnevnik (Sofia, 2001). 64. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 4, pp. 19, 76. 65. Ibid, p. 140. 66. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 18. 67. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 4, pp. 253–66. 68. Ibid, pp. 241–3. 69. Hristov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 21; M. Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov et la prise du pouvoir communiste en Bulgarie’, Communisme, 65–66 (2001), pp. 207–31; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 32–3. 70. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 4, pp. 351–3, 360–9, 443–50. 71. TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 3, l. 1–2; Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 3, p. 55. 72. Ibid, Vol. 4, pp. 150–4, 169–94; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 101. 73. Ibid, p. 95. 74. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 4, p. 303. 75. Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 39; Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 193. 76. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 518, l. 1. 77. Ibid, a.e. 305. 78. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 5, pp. 29–46, 80, 167–74. 79. Ibid, pp. 202–10. 80. Ibid, pp. 238–64. 81. Ibid, p. 97. 82. Ibid, p. 219; Ibid, Vol. 6, pp. 101–4; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 101. 84. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 3 (Sofia, 2005), pp. 252–3; Vekov, ‘Vassil Kolarov’, pp. 83–4. 85. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 63. 86. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 258. 87. R. Crampton, A Short History of Modern Bulgaria (Cambridge, 1987), p. 69. 88. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 5, p. 117; Ibid, Vol. 6, p. 140. 89. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 536. 90. P. Georgiev and P. Radenkova (eds.), Georgi Dimitrov. Pisma 1905–1949g. (Sofia, 1962), p. 162; Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 324. 91. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 20. 92. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 7, pp. 32–62, 105–6, 236–259. 93. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 321. 94. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 3, pp. 252–3. 95. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 291, 295. 96. Crampton, A Short History, p. 69; Lampe, The Bulgarian Economy, p. 45. 97. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 108; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 48. 98. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 8, p. 207. 99. Ibid, Vol. 7, pp. 281–2. 100. Ibid, Vol. 8, pp. 289–336; TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 537. 101. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 305–6. 102 Ibid, p. 310.

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103. K. Todorov, Balkan Firebrand: The Autobiography of a Rebel, Soldier and Statesman (Chicago, IL, 1943), p. 92. 104. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 1835, 1836. 105. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1799, 1800. 106. Ibid, a.e.1804. 107. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 324; Crampton, A Short History, p. 82. 108. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 1, p. 258. 109. Rothschild, The Communist Party, pp. 82–3; Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 24. 110. Todorov, Balkan Firebrand, pp. 101–2. 111. Michev et al, Spomeni, Vol. 1, p. 143; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 110. 112. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 8, p. 476. 113. Crampton, A Short History, p. 82; S. Groueff, Crown of Thorns: The Reign of King Boris III of Bulgaria 1918–1943 (Lanham, 1987), pp. 49–52. 114. Vinarov, Boytsi, pp. 108, 110; Foscolo, Georges Dimitrov, p. 108; Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 315. 115. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 8, p. 487. 116. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 518, l. 1. 117. Ibid, a.e. 538. 118. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 337. 119. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 371. 120. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 25; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 52. 121. Revyakina, ‘Georgi Dimitrov v bulgarskoto’, pp. 5–6; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 52; Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 9, pp. 47–8, 369. 122. Ibid, p. 57. 123. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 327. 124. D. Kazassov, Vidyano i Prezhivyano (Sofia, 1969), p. 201. 125. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 9, p. 164. 126. Ibid, pp. 206–12; Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 334. 127. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 333. 128. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 9, p. 90. 129. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 361. 130. Kazassov, Vidyano, pp. 216–18; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 55. 131. Crampton, A Short History, p. 85. 132. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 607, l. 75–7. 133. Ibid, op. 1, a.e. 207. 134. Todorov, Balkan Firebrand, pp. 130–2. 135. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1825, 1827. 136. Ibid, a.e. 1817, 1826, 1829, 1830–33, 1840. 137. Ibid, a.e. 1840; Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 361; Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 9, pp. 397, 406. 138. E. Kalinova, ‘V usluga na Moskva. Vassil Kolarov’, in M. Radeva (ed.), Bulgarski Durzhavnitsi 1944g.–1989g. (Sofia, 2005), p. 79. 139. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 118–20. 140. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 10, p. 164. 141. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 361. 142. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 11, pp. 83–5. 143. Vinarov, Boytsi, p. 86. 144. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 11, pp. 83–5. 145. Vinarov, Boytsi, pp. 41, 47–8, 108, 110. 146. Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 64. 147. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2 (Sofia, 2002), p. 55. 148. Michev et al, Spomeni, Vol. 1, p. 194.

244 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155. 156. 157. 158. 159. 160. 161. 162. 163. 164.

GEORGI D IMITROV TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 209, l. 7–8, 54. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1841. Ibid, a.e. 1844. Ibid, a.e. 304. Ibid, a.e. 1845. Ibid, a.e. 1846, 1847. Ibid, a.e. 1883. Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 1853. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 230; Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 12, pp. 121–32. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1851, 1853, 1860, 1867. Ibid, a.e. 1868. Ibid, a.e. 1887, 1888. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 31. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 397. Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 68; TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 488. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 408–9.

Chapter Two 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Kazassov, Vidyano, p. 570. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 107. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 9, p. 183. Crampton, A Short History, pp. 88–94. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 12, pp. 231–2; Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 69. Rothschild, The Communist Party, pp. 102–4. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 13, p. 214; Revyakina, ‘Georgi Dimitrov v bulgarskoto’, p. 7. Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, pp. 46–7; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 128–9. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 13, p. 272; Kolev, ‘Mitut’, p. 100. Ibid, pp. 95–102; Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 35; Kazassov, Vidyano, p. 301. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, pp. 159, 172. D. Daskalov, Politicheski Ubiystva v Novata Istoriya na Bulgaria (Sofia, 1999), pp. 81–9. Crampton, A Short History, pp. 98–100. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 33. Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, pp. 21–3; Rothschild, The Communist Party, p.

121. 16. Ibid, p. 122; Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, pp. 148–9. The news of Stamboliyski’s murder that very day had not yet reached Moscow. 17. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, pp. 74–8; Vinarov, Boytsi, pp. 31–5. 18. A. Vekov (ed.), Stalin i Bulgarskiyat Komunizum. Ot Taynite Bulgarski i Ruski Arhivi (Sofia, 2002), pp. 8–9. 19. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 123; Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 35. 20. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, pp. 150–2. 21. P. Boev (ed.), Kominternut, VKP(b), BKP (Sofia, 1990), p. 208; Rothschild, The Communist Party, pp. 125, 131; Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 124. 22. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, p. 20. 23. Revyakina, ‘Georgi Dimitrov v bulgarskoto’, p. 8. 24. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 131; Hristov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 40–1. 25. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, p. 154; Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, p. 168. 26. R. W. Leonard, Secret Soldiers of the Revolution: Soviet Military Intelligence, 1918–1933 (Westport, CT, 1999), pp. 33–4. 27. Boev, Kominternut, p. 208. 28. Georgiev and Radenkova, Pisma, pp. 123–4. 29. Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 75.

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30. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 14, p. 436; Semerdjiev, Dimitrov, p. 18; D. Sirkov, ‘Iz istoricheskiya opit ot koalitsionnata politika na BSP 1919–1944g.’, Ponedelnik, 6–7, (1998), pp. 183– 90; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 133–4. 31. S. Dimitrova, ‘Voennata organizatsiya na BKP pri podgotovka na Septemvriyskoto vustanie 1923g.’, Voennoistoricheski Sbornik, 1 (1990), pp. 33–5. 32. Hristov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 55. 33. Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 137. 34. D. Kazassov, Iskri ot Burni Godini. Sofia, 1987, pp. 121–2; Boev, Kominternut, p. 211. 35. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 137. 36. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 132, l. 7; Semerdjiev, Dimitrov, p. 24. 37. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 406. 38. Protoyerey Y. Popov, Zapiski po Nebulgarskite Vustaniya (Sofia, 1992), pp. 33–6; B. Penchev, Septemvri ’23: Ideologiya na Pametta (Sofia, 2006), p. 197. 39. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, pp. 88, 108–18. 40. Daskalov, Politicheski Ubiystva, pp. 91, 98. 41. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, pp. 36–7. 42. Michev et al, Spomeni, Vol. 1, pp. 256–60; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 140–1. 43. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 103; Naumov, Atentatut, pp. 12–13. 44. Todorov, Balkan Firebrand, p. 197. 45. T. Koleva, ‘Georgi Dimitrov i politicheskata liniya na BKP 1923–1925g.’, in Kanatsieva and Turlakova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 25–6; I. Baeva, ‘Georgi Dimitrov – pogled ot nachaloto na 21 vek’, in Kanatsieva and Turlakova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 149–58; 46. Naumov, Atentatut, pp. 12–13. 47. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 607, l. 81, 89–92; T. Turlakova, ‘BKF i Kominternut’, in Kanatsieva and Turlakova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 231–4. 48. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 498, 504–5, 508. 49. Todorov, Balkan Firebrand, p. 200. 50. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1521, 1524, 1527. 51. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, p. 240. 52. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1515. 53. Ibid, a.e. 1518, op. 5, a.e. 71; Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 152. 54. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1517, 1522. 55. Ibid, a.e. 1525. 56. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 14, pp. 88–9, 119. 57. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 668, l. 1–7; Ibid, a.e. 1527. 58. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 120, l. 3–4. 59. Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 90. 60. Kazassov, Iskri, p. 126. 61. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 412; Foscolo, 'Georges Dimitrov', pp. 169–70. 62. Revyakina, ‘Georgi Dimitrov v bulgarskoto’, p. 9; Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, p. 50; Boev, Kominternut, p. 213. 63. Hadjinikolov et al, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 91; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 147. 64. Naumov, Atentatut, p. 14. 65. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 390, l. 17, 19–20. 66. Ibid, l. 26. 67. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 477, 486–7. 68. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1536, 1541. 69. Ibid, a.e. 1539. 70. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, p. 139. 71. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, pp. 40–1. 72. Vinarov, Boytsi, pp. 139–40. 73. Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, p. 30.

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74. Ibid, p. 34. 75. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1516; Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, p. 49. 76. Todorov, Balkan Firebrand, pp. 200–10. 77. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 109, l. 1–2. 78. Ibid, a.e. 1532. 79. Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, p. 65; TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1550; Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 140, l. 1–3. 80. Todorov, Balkan Firebrand, p. 218; Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, p. 57. 81. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 153; Rothschild, The Communist Party, p. 168. 82. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 607, l. 94. 83. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1543. 84. Ibid, a.e. 1515, l. 3–4. 85. Ibid, a.e. 1541. 86. Statelova and Gruncharov, Istoriya, p. 433. 87. Semerdjiev, BKP, pp. 72–4; Todorov, Balkan Firebrand, p. 214; Kazassov, Vidyano, p. 340. 88. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1542. 89. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 138. 90. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1563, l. 1–2. 91. Ibid, a.e. 116–17. 92. Semerdjiev, BKP, pp. 53, 56. 93. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1563, l. 3–4, 94. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, pp. 168, 172, 175–180. 95. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 120, l. 4. 96. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1540–1. 97. Ibid, a.e. 1530. 98. Ibid, a.e. 1544–5. 99. Ibid, a.e. 1547. 100. Ibid, a.e. 1537–8; op. 6, a.e. 377. 101. Ibid, a.e. 138, l. 7; Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, pp. 130–43; Naumov, Atentatut, pp. 28–32. 102. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 138. 103. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 1499. 104. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1551. 105. Ibid, a.e. 1563, l. 4–5. 106. Ibid, a.e. 1555. 107. Naumov, Atentatut, pp. 77–9. 108. Vekov, Stalin, pp. 10–11. 109. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1565–7. 110. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 500. 111. Boev, Kominternut, p. 363; Naumov, Atentatut, pp. 132–4. 112. Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, pp. 66–73. 113. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 41. 114. Boev, Kominternut, p. 363. 115. Naumov, Atentatut, pp. 193–4. 116. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1489, l. 18; Ibid, a.e. 1565, 1458. 117. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 162, l. 27. 118. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, p. 235. 119. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 132, l. 1. 120. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, pp. 175, 200. 121. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1569. 122. Ibid, a.e. 132, l. 1–5. 123. Ibid, l. 7.

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124. Vekov, Stalin, pp. 22–3. 125. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1568. 126. Ibid, a.e. 1496. 127. Ibid, a.e. 1458, l. 2; Ibid, a.e. 1569, l. 4, op. 6; Ibid, a.e. 162, l. 26. 128. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1512, 1515, l. 1–2. 129. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 487, l. 1–5. 130. IIbid, op. 2, a.e. 1513. 131. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 520, l. 8–13; Ibid, a.e. 607, l. 114. 132. Ibid, l. 110. 133. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1457, l. 1–15; Ibid, a.e. 1458. 134. Ibid, a.e. 140, l. 14–16. 135. Ibid, a.e. 1512. 136. Ibid, a.e. 1576, l. 1–19. 137. Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, p. 239. 138. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 140, l. 14–16. 139. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 200, l. 9–11. 140. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1472, l. 11. 141. Ibid, a.e. 1471, l. 8–9. 142. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 200, l. 11. 143. Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, p. 232. 144. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, pp. 244–51; Naumov, Atentatut, p. 205. 145. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 146, l. 1. 146. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 164. 147. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1740. 148. Boev, Kominternut, p. 239. 149. Ibid, p. 268; TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 214, l. 1; Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, pp. 193–8. 150. Ibid, pp. 213–15; TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 146, l. 14–15; Boev, Kominternut, p. 275. 151. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 143. 152. Ibid, a.e. 146, l. 1–25. 153. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, pp. 262, 265. 154. Naumov, Atentatut, p. 211. 155. Semerdjiev, Dimitrov, p. 20. 156. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1594, l. 7. 157. Boev, Kominternut, pp. 276–7; Revyakina, ‘Georgi Dimitrov v bulgarskoto’, p. 13. 158. Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, p. 220. 159. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 153. 160. N. Petrov, Stalin i Razgromut na Bulgarskata Politicheska Emigratsiya (Plovdiv, 2001), p. 64. 161. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 169. 162. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 607, l. 113; Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1594, l. 2. 163. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1450; Vinarov, Boytsi, pp. 308, 310. 164. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1499; Georgiev and Radenkova, Pisma, p. 179. 165. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1593, l. 4. 166. Georgiev and Radenkova, Pisma, p. 190. 167. A. Dallin and F. Firsov (eds.), Dimitrov i Stalin, 1934–1943. Pisma ot Suvetskite Arhivi (Sofia, 2001), p. 19. 168. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 274. 169. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1593, l. 1–2. 170. Revyakina, ‘Georgi Dimitrov v bulgarskoto’, p. 16. 171. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 159, l. 1–3; Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 163, l. 26–7. 172. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, pp. 44–6; Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, p. 230; Boev, Kominternut, p. 277.

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1. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 160, l. 7–9. 2. Ibid, l. 4–6. 3. Ibid, l. 1–3. 4. Ibid, a.e. 161, l. 1–32. 5. Ibid, l. 30–32. 6. Georgiev and Radenkova, Pisma, pp. 192–3. 7. Ibid. 8. TsPA, f. 146, op. 5, a.e. 130, l. 7. 9. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, p. 232. 10. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, pp. 45–6. 11. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 270, l. 1–6. 12. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 580. 13. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 175–7; Revyakina, Kominternut i Selskite Partii, pp. 356–60. 14. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 585. 15. Ibid, pp. 590–1. 16. A. Georgiev, ‘Layptsigskiyat protses’, Pro&Anti, 43 (23–29 October 2003), p. 12. 17. Michev et al, Spomeni, Vol. 2, pp. 25–32. 18. Georgiev and Radenkova, Pisma, p. 196; TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1608, l. 1–3. 19. Ibid, op. 1, a.e. 14. 20. Ganchovski, Dnite, p. 67. 21. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1608, l. 3. 22. Ibid, op. 3, a.e. 523. 23. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 167. 24. Ibid, a.e. 168. 25. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 1619. 26. Rothschild, The Communist Party, pp. 273–6. 27. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 600. 28. S. McMeekin, The Red Millionaire: A Political Biography of Willi Münzenberg, Moscow’s Secret Propaganda Tsar in the West, 1917–40 (New Haven, CT, 2003), pp. 248–50. 29. Michev et al, Spomeni, Vol. 1, p. 327. 30. B. Gross, Willi Münzenberg: A Political Biography (East Lansing, MI, 1974), p. 226. 31. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6. a.e. 813. 32. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 610–11. 33. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1642. 34. Ibid, a.e. 298, 309. 35. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 6, 8 April 1933. 36. Ibid, 4 May 1933. 37. Ibid, 27 April 1933. 38. Ibid, 28–9 July 1933. 39. Ibid, 4 April 1933. 40. Gross, Willi Münzenberg, p. 242. 41. World Committee for the Victims of German Fascism, The Brown Book of the Hitler Terror and the Burning of the Reichstag (London, 1933). 42. Gross, Willi Münzenberg, pp. 251–6. 43. M. Semkov, Moabit 8085 (Sofia, 1981), p. 113. 44. Ibid, p. 86. 45. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 217. 46. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 640. 47. Todorov, Balkan Firebrand, p. 246. 48. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 48. 49. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 10–14 July, 30 August, 8 September 1933.

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50. Ibid, 4 October 1933. 51. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 219. 52. Georgiev and Radenkova, Pisma, p. 245. 53. Semkov, Moabit 8085, pp. 234–9. 54. M. Dodd, Through Embassy Eyes (New York, 1939), pp. 57–62. 55. Semkov, Moabit 8085, p. 270. 56. M. Semkov, ‘V Layptsig – luzhi, lyubov i muzhestvo’. 57. S. Koch, Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Münzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals (London, 1995), pp. 54–6. 58. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, p. 343; A. Georgiev, ‘Aliansut Hitler–Dimitrov sreshtu sotsialdemokratsiyata’, Pro&Anti, 42 (16–22 October 2003), p. 12. 59. Groueff, Crown of Thorns, p. 192. 60. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 23 February 1937. 61. Georgiev and Radenkova, Pisma, pp. 264, 266. 62. Barumova, Zhivot, p. 46. 63. E. H. Carr, The Twilight of the Comintern, 1930–1935 (London, 1982), pp. 114, 118. 64. Baev, ‘Imalo li e sdelka’. 65. Georgiev and Radenkova, Pisma, p. 269. 66. TsPA, f. 146, op. 3, a.e. 567. 67. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 684. 68. Baev, ‘Imalo li e sdelka’. 69. S. Popov, Bezsunitsi (Sofia, 1988), p. 73. 70. N. Poppetrov, ‘Trima profesionalni revolyutsioneri struvali kolkoto chetirima inzhineri’, Reporter 7, 9 (4 March 1994), p. 6. 71. Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, p. 326. 72. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 6 April, 23 May, 11, 25 June, 29 November 1934. 73. TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 278, 280. 74. Carr, The Twilight of the Comintern, pp. 275–80; E. Barker, Austria 1918–1972 (London, 1973), pp. 85–9. 75. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, p. 772. 76. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 7 April 1934. 77. Boev, Kominternut, p. 347. 78. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 7 April 1934. 79. Ibid, 25 April 1934. 80. Ibid, 1–2 May 1934. 81. Ibid, 28 March 1934. 82. TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 221. 83. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 28 June 1934. 84. Varadinov, Vulkanichen Chovek, pp. 94–5; TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1727, l. 4. 85. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 11 May 1934. 86. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 317. 87. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 29 June 1934. 88. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 29–30. 89. Ibid, p. 21; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 20 May, 2–3 July 1934; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 256–8; Carr, The Twilight of the Comintern, pp. 128–9. 90. Ibid, p. 195. 91. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, pp. 48–9; Semerdjiev, Dimitrov, pp. 28–9. 92. Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, pp. 340–54; Baev, ‘Sotsialdemokratsiya i antifashizum’, pp. 56–67. 93. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, pp. 762–7. 94. Ibid, p. 773. 95. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 131.

250

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96. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, pp. 786–8. 97. Ibid, p. 795; Boev, Kominternut, p. 220. 98. Ibid, pp. 303–9. 99. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 32–7; Revyakina et al, Kominternut, pp. 792–4. 100. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, p. 333. 101. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 17 May 1934. 102. TsPA, f. 146, op. 5, a.e. 92, l. 1. 103. Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 146. 104. Chase, Enemies Within, pp. 24–5. 105. Boev, Kominternut, p. 250. 106. Chase, Enemies Within, pp. 40, 48, 97–8. 107. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 180, l. 26–35. 108. Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 131. 109. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 562. 110. Ibid, a.e. 564. 111. Ibid, a.e. 1445, l. 65–6. 112. Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 209, l. 1–7. 113. Ibid, a.e. 350. 114. Ibid, a.e. 715. 115. Ibid, op. 1, a.e. 227, l. 1, 4. 116. Ibid, a.e. 228. 117. Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 58, l. 5, 13–16, 24–5, 29, 32, 134. 118. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 50. 119. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, pp. 328, 334–7, 340. 120. K. McDermott and J. Agnew, The Comintern: A History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 131–3. 121. Boev, Kominternut, pp. 311–12. 122. Ibid, pp. 317, 321. 123. Semerdjiev, Dimitrov, p. 8. 124. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1467, l. 1–4. 125. Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 259, l. 1–4. 126. Chase, Enemies Within, pp. 123–4. 127. TsPA, f. 146, op. 3, a.e. 563, 566–9. 128. Chase, Enemies Within, pp. 335, 339. 129. Ibid, pp. 162, 179–84. 130. L. Deyanova, ‘Dnevnikut na Georgi Dimitrov i mestata na pametta’, Sotsiologicheski problemi, 1–2 (2003), 196–206; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 19, 24 August 1938. 131. Boev, Kominternut, p. 253. 132. Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, p. 394. 133. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1487. 134. Bell, The Bulgarian Communist Party, p. 50; Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, p. 392. 135. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 4 December 1937. 136. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 874, l. 4–10. 137. Chase, Enemies Within, pp. 202–3. 138. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 2 February 1937. 139. Chase, Enemies Within, pp. 207–10. 140. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, pp. 498–516. 141. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 11 February 1937. 142. Ibid, 5–6 March 1937. 143. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 76. 144. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 16 March 1937.

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145. McDermott and Agnew, The Comintern, pp. 136–9; M. Larkin, France since the Popular Front: Government and People, 1936–1986 (Oxford, 1988), pp. 52–7. 146. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 16 September 1936, 15 November 1937. 147. Ibid, 16 December 1936. 148. E. H. Carr, The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War (London, 1984), pp. 6–7. 149. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 69–70. 150. Carr, The Comintern, pp. 16–17. 151. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 28 August, 2, 14 September 1936. 152. Ibid, 14, 16 September; Carr, The Comintern, p. 21; Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 72–3. 153. D. Smyth, ‘“We Are With You”: Solidarity and Self-interest in Soviet Policy Towards Republican Spain, 1936–39’, P. Preston and A. L. Mackenzie (eds.), The Republic Besieged: Civil War in Spain, 1936–39 (Edinburgh, 1996), pp. 87–106. 154. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 88–100. 155. Ibid, p. 102. 156. D. Kowalsky, Stalin and the Spanish Civil War (New York, 2004), at www.gutenberge.org/kod01/ 157. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 26 November 1936. 158. Ibid, 14 December 1936. 159. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 142, 150. 160. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 191. 161. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 1502. 162. Chase, Enemies Within, p. 236. 163. Ibid, pp. 240–60. 164. Ibid, p. 284; Petrov, Stalin i Razgromut, pp. 86–7. 165. Chase, Enemies Within, pp. 267–72. 166. Ibid, pp. 287–9; McDermott and Agnew, The Comintern, p. 147. 167. Semkov, Moabit 8085, p. 237. 168. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1506. 169. Ibid, op. 5, a.e. 130, l. 1–7, 12–13. 170. B. Popov, Ot Layptsigskiya Protses v Sibirskite Lageri. Spomeni (Paris, 1984), pp. 13–15. 171. Ibid, p. 38. 172. Petrov, Stalin i Razgromut, p. 86. 173. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 302; Gross, Willi Münzenberg, p. 305. 174. Petrov, Stalin i Razgromut, pp. 73–6. Boev estimates that about 1,000 Bulgarians were purged and 600 of those perished: Boev, Kominternut, p. 221. 175. Ibid, p. 355; Chase, Enemies Within, p. 345. 176. M. Djilas, Memoir of a Revolutionary (New York, 1973), p. 304. 177. V. Dedijer, Tito Speaks (London, 1953), p. 100; Chervenkov did not confirm this. 178. Vekov, Stalin i Bulgarskiyat Komunizum, p. 67. 179. Boev, Kominternut, pp. 254–5. 180. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 12 November 1939. 181. Chase, Enemies Within, p. 345. 182. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1530, l. 2; Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, p. 400; Petrov, Stalin i Razgromut, pp. 88–95, Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 2, p. 548. 183. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 20 February 1941. 184. Chervenkov, Za Sebe Si, pp. 60–2. 185. Baev, ‘Georgi Dimitrov i sudbata’, p. 341; Valeva, ‘Repressii’, p. 328; Petrov, Stalin i Razgromut, p. 50; Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, p. 390. 186. Boev, Kominternut, p. 315; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 22 September 1938. 187. Ibid, 23–4 November 1938. 188. Foscolo, ‘Georges Dimitrov’, p. 384.

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189. Boev, Kominternut, pp. 348–9. 190. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 7–8 December 1937; Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 790. 191. J. Baev, ‘Taka zapochna voinata. Politicheski zapiski na Georgi Dimitrov 1936–1940g.’, Izvestiya na Instituta za Voenna Istoria, 58 (1995), pp. 314–52.

Chapter Four 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 14, l. 3. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 13–23 March 1939. Ibid, 23 March, 24, 26 April 1939. Savova, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 806. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 1–9 May 1939. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 58–66; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 26 April 1939. Ibid, 29 May, 13 June 1939. Ibid, 22 August 1939. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, pp. 71–84. Ibid, p. 86. Baev, ‘Taka zapochna’, p. 316. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 206–7. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, pp. 11, 88. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 210–25; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 302. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 21, 25 October 1939. Ibid, 31 October, 7 November 1939. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, pp. 5, 218–26. Ibid, pp. 16–17. Ibid, p. 21. Ibid, p. 22; Avreyski, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 337. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 21 January 1940. Lebedeva et al , Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, pp. 34–7. Ibid, pp. 347–52; Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 229–30. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, pp. 359–64. Ibid, pp. 376–82. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 7 November, 21 December 1939, 21 January, 9, 28–9 March 1940. Ibid, 14, 18 April 1940. Ibid, 22 September–25 October 1940. Ibid, 7 November 1940. Ibid, 25 November 1940. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, Vol. 2, p. 383. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 28 November 1940. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, Vol. 2, pp. 945–9. Ibid, pp. 926–7. Ibid, p. 939. Ibid, p. 950. Ibid, pp. 951–2. Ibid, p. 956. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 4 January 1941. Ibid, 13 January 1941. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, p. 962. Ibid, p. 965. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, pp. 443–50. Ibid, p. 466. Ibid, p. 470. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 176–8, 190–4.

ENDNOTES

253

47. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 20 February 1941. 48. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, pp. 501–2. 49. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 250–2, Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 316. 50. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 8 March 1941. 51. Ibid, 20 March 1941. 52. Ibid, 26 March, 1 April 1941; Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, p. 517. 53. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 9 April 1941. 54. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, p. 458. 55. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 312–4. 56. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, p. 305; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 1–2 May 1941. 57. Ibid, 5 May 1941. 58. Ibid, 12 May 1941. 59. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, p. 253. 60. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 1, pp. 523, 526. 61. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 257–8. 62. Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, Vol. 2, p. 402. 63. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, p. 95. 64. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 24 June–6 July 1941; Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, pp. 97–102. 65. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, p. 978; Semerdjiev, Ruskata Imperiya, Vol. 2, p. 415. 66. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 285–6, 289. 67. Ibid, pp. 196–7; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 2, 3, 7, 18, 20 July 1941. 68. Vinarov, Boytsi, pp. 464–5. 69. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 27 August, 1, 3 September 1941; Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, p. 26; Praźmowska, Civil War, pp. 41–2. 70. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1728. 71. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 2 September 1941. 72. Ibid, 5 July 1941. 73. Ibid, 28 July, 16 August, 8 September 1941. 74. Ibid, 15 October 1941. 75. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 262–3. 76. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, p. 166. 77. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 6–7 November 1941. 78. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 645, op. 2, a.e. 1770; Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 293–6. 79. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, p. 328. 80. Ibid, p. 330; Praźmowska, Civil War, p. 42. 81. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, p. 194. 82. Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 273–80. 83. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 21 March–5 April 1943. 84. TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 329, l. 2–3. 85. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 27 April 1943. 86. Ibid, 8, 11 May 1943. 87. Ibid, 17, 19, 21 May 1943; Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, pp. 359–74; Dallin and Firsov, Dimitrov i Stalin, pp. 319–20. 88. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, p. 375. 89. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 19 May 1943. 90. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 324–6. 91. Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, pp. 413–18. 92. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1748, l. 2–5; Ibid, a.e. 1770, l. 6–7; Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, p. 405. 93. Ibid, pp. 383, 399.

254

GEORGI D IMITROV

94. Ibid, p. 444. 95. Ibid, p. 412; Avreyski, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 446–55. 96. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, Vol. 2, pp. 1026–34. 97. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1519, l. 1–4, a.e. 1520; Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, pp. 403–4; E. Avramova (ed.), Bulgaria v Sekretniya Arhiv na Stalin (Sofia, 2004), pp. 23–4; Revyakina et al, Kominternut, Vol. 2, pp. 1050–2. 98. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 12 March 1944. 99. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 72, l. 30–2. 100. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 26 August 1944. 101. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, Vol. 2, pp. 1063–74, 1076. 102. Ts. Dragoicheva, Povelya na Dulga, Vol. 3 (Sofia, 1980), pp. 495–6; Rabotnichesko Delo, 26 November 1947; Lebedeva et al, Komintern i Vtoraya, Vol. 2, pp. 425, 443. 103. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, Vol. 2, pp. 1061–2. 104. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 16, 19 April 1944; J. Baev, ‘Stalin i Dimitrov’, Zarya, 4 (18 October 1991), p. 14. 105. M. Stankova, ‘Bulgaria in British Foreign Policy, 1943–44’ (unpublished PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, 1999), pp. 91–3. 106. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 24 April 1944; Baev, ‘Stalin i Dimitrov’, p. 12. 107. Stankova, ‘Bulgaria in British Foreign Policy’, pp. 38–40. 108. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 10–11 May 1944. 109. Ibid, 28 May 1944. 110. Hr. Kulichev, Vestiteli , p. 275. 111. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 1831. 112. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 31 March, 5 May, 16 June, 10 July 1944. 113. Ibid, 5 June 1944; Revyakina et al, Kominternut, Vol. 2, pp. 1088–92. 114. Ibid, pp. 1093–7; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 16 July 1944. 115. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 209, l. 1–6. 116. Ibid, a.e. 1748, l. 7–9. 117. Daskalov, Zhan Suobshtava, p. 182; I. Dimitrov, Ivan Bagryanov – Tsaredvorets, Politik, Durzhavnik (Sofia, 1995), p. 62. 118. Baev, ‘Stalin i Dimitrov’, p. 12. 119. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, Vol. 2, pp. 1122–4. 120. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1765, l. 92–7. 121. Baev, ‘Stalin i Dimitrov’, p. 12. 122. Revyakina et al, Kominternut, Vol. 2, pp. 1128, 1133. 123. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1676, l. 3–5. 124. Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 530, l. 1–9. 125. M. Issussov, ‘Pisma na Traicho Kostov do Georgi Dimitrov (1944–1945g.)’, Izvestiya na Durzhavnite Arhivi, 69 (1998), pp. 69–148. 126. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 164; Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 1526, l. 20–1, 23. 127. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1743, l. 2–4. 128. V. Toshkova, ‘Primirieto s Bulgaria – 28 oktomvri 1944 godina’, Izvestiya na Durzhavnite Arhivi, 68 (1997), pp. 43–96. 129. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1748, l. 10–11. 130. Toshkova, ‘Primirieto’, p. 54. 131. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 337, l. 23–36. 132. Issussov, ‘Pisma’, pp. 90, 125. 133. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 368–9. 134. Issussov, ‘Pisma’, pp. 95–6, 115. 135. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 169. 136. Ibid, a.e. 337, l. 23–48. 137. Ibid, a.e. 169.

ENDNOTES

255

138. Ibid, a.e. 337, l. 23–48. 139. Ibid, a.e. 172.

Chapter Five 1. L. Ognyanov, M. Dimova and M. Lalkov (eds.), Narodna Demokratsiya ili Diktatura (Sofia, 1992), pp. 24–9. 2. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 172. 3. Semerdjiev, Narodniyat Sud, p. 406; Crampton, A Short History, p. 149. 4. Arkhiv Vneshney Politiki Rossiyskoy Federatsii (AVPRF), f. 74, op. 26, p. 16, no. 6, l. 116. 5. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 337, l. 102, 104. 6. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 28 January 1945; Baev, ‘Stalin i Dimitrov’, Zarya, 1 (20 September 1991), p. 10. 7. E. Barker, Truce in the Balkans (London, 1948), pp. 49–50. 8. C. Moser, Dimitrov of Bulgaria: A Political Biography of Dr Georgi M. Dimitrov (Ottawa, 1979), p. 198. 9. Dimitrov, Stalin’s Cold War, pp. 100–2. 10. Avramova, Bulgaria v Sekretniya Arhiv, p. 48. 11. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 597, l. 2. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid, a.e. 1748, l. 14–15. 14. Avramova, Bulgaria v Sekretniya Arhiv, pp. 33–4. 15. Baev, ‘Stalin i Dimitrov’, Zarya, 3 (2 October 1991), p. 14. 16. Ibid; TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1687; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 356–62. 17. Moser, Dimitrov of Bulgaria, p. 217. 18. Dimitrov, Stalin’s Cold War, pp. 105–7. 19. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 24, 30 June 1945. 20. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 184, l. 1–4; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 9–10 July 1945; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 371–4. 21. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 337, l. 151. 22. Barker, Truce in the Balkans, p. 49; Issussov, ‘Pisma’, p. 111. 23. Ibid, pp. 136, 141. 24. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 7–8, 21–22 August 1945; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 377. 25. FO 371/48129, R 14209, British Military Mission (BMM) to War Office (WO), 22 August 1945. 26. AVPRF, f. 74, op. 27, no. 18, p. 17, l. 30, Kirsanov to Soviet Foreign Ministry, 22 August 1945. 27. FO 371/48129, R 14356, BMM to Foreign Office (FO), 24 August 1945 and BMM to WO, 25 August 1945; Ibid, R14436, Houstoun-Boswall to FO, 27 August 1945; M. Mackintosh, ‘Stalin’s Policies Towards Eastern Europe, 1939–48: The General Picture’, in T. T. Hammond and R. Farrell (eds.), The Anatomy of Communist Takeovers (New Haven, CT, 1975), pp. 239–40. 28. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 22–24 August 1945. 29. V. Dimitrov, ‘Revolution Released: Stalin, the Bulgarian Communist Party and the Establishment of the Cominform’, in Gori and Pons, The Soviet Union, p. 280. 30. FO 371/48131, R 15519, Houstoun-Boswall to FO, 12 September 1945. 31. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 6 September 1945. 32. Avramova, Bulgaria v Sekretniya Arhiv, p. 78. 33. Ibid, p. 84; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 380. 34. Issussov, ‘Pisma’, pp. 145–7. 35. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 3–5 November 1945. 36. Barker, Truce in the Balkans, pp. 60–1. 37. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 9 November 1945. 38. Black, ‘The Start’, p. 189; FO 371/48194, R 19201, Washington to FO, 12 November 1945.

256

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39. FO 371/48194, R 20177, Sofia to FO, 29 November 1945. 40. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 28 November 1945. 41. Ibid, 18, 21–23 November 1945. 42. Ibid, 5 December 1945. 43. P. Ignatov, Surtse za Vsichki (Sofia, 1982), pp. 34, 47. 44. AVPRF, f. 74, op. 27, no. 8, p. 16, l. 57–68, various communications, December 1945; Valeva, ‘Repressii’, pp. 320–4. 45. Issussov, Stalin, pp. 40–1; V. Dimitrov, ‘The Failure of Democracy in Eastern Europe and the Emergence of the Cold War, 1944–48: A Bulgarian Case Study’ (unpublished DPhil thesis, University of Cambridge, 1996), pp. 324–8. 46. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1028, l. 1–2. 47. Ibid; L. Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema na Bulgaria 1944–48g. (Sofia, 1993), p. 92. 48. TsPA, f. 1, op. 5, a.e. 5, l. 4–6. 49. Ognyanov et al, Narodna Demokratsiya, p. 47. 50. TsPA, f. 147, op. 2, a.e. 56, l. 1–8; Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers. 1946, Vol. VI (Washington, 1969), p. 48, Acheson to Barnes, 12 January 1946; Black, ‘The Start’, p. 192; Rossiyskiy Gossudarstvenniy Arkhiv Sotsial’noy i Politicheskoy Istorii (RGASPI – Russian State Archive for Social and Political History), f. 17, op. 128, a.e. 759, l. 121, CC of BKP to CC of VKP(B), 30 December 1945; TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1028, l. 1–2. 51. Ibid, f. 147, op. 2, a.e. 1033, l. 1; Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema, pp. 94–5; Issussov, Stalin, p. 41. 52. TsPA, f. 147, op. 2, a.e. 1033, l. 2; Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. VI, p. 50, Barnes to Byrnes, 13 January 1946; Issussov, Stalin, pp. 42–3; Ognyanov et al, Narodna Demokratsiya, pp. 52–5. 53. Foreign Relations of the United States, Vol. VI, p. 48, Barnes to Byrnes, 12 January 1946; Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema, p. 96. 54. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1030. 55. Ibid, a.e. 345. 56. Ibid, op. 4, a.e. 191–2. 57. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 9 February 1946. 58. Gergov, Obrugavaneto, pp. 42–3. 59. E. Mark, ‘The War Scare of 1946 and its Consequences’, Diplomatic History, 21 (1997), pp. 393–415. 60. FO371/58515, R 4575, Sofia to FO, 16 March 1946. 61. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 342, l. 1–4. 62. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 13 March 1946. 63. Ibid, 16 March 1945. 64. Stankova, ‘Bulgaria in British Foreign Policy’, pp. 219–20. 65. TsPA, f. 146, op. 6, a.e. 1633. 66. Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema, pp. 102–12. 67. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 743. 68. Ibid, a.e. 602. 69. Ibid, a.e. 711. 70. Ganchovski, Dnite, p. 110. 71. Zh. Tsvetkov, Sudut nad Opozitsionnite Lideri (Sofia, 1991), pp. 10–11. 72. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 390. 73. FO 371/58524, R 12707, R 13920, R 14821, Sofia to FO and WO, 26 August, 28 September 1946. 74. Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema, pp. 102–12, 115–16. 75. Baev, ‘Stalin i Dimitrov.’ Zarya, 3, p. 14; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 392. 76. TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 308; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 30 August 1946.

ENDNOTES

257

77. Ibid, 2 September 1946. 78. TsPA, f. 146, op. 5, a.e. 477. 79. TsPA, f. 1, op. 5, a.e. 7, l. 85–7. 80. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 237; V. Velcheva, Sturshel v Kipezha na Politicheskata Borba, 1946–1948g. (Sofia, 1988), p. 49; Rabotnichesko Delo, 27 October 1946; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 19, 24 October 1946. 81. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 237. 82. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 4–16 October 1946. 83. Ibid, 22–3, 25 October 1946. 84. Varadinov, Vulkanichen Chovek, p. 77. 85. G. Markov, The Truth That Killed (London, 1983), pp. 9–10. 86. I. Peychev, ‘Piyan beshe Georgi Dimitrov ama mi vze merkata’, Narodno Zemedelsko Zname, 121 (24 June 1992). 87. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 5 November 1946; Avramova, Bulgaria v Sekretniya Arhiv, pp. 147– 8; Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 403. 88. Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema, p. 84. 89. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 15 November 1946. 90. Yotov et al, Suchineniya, Vol. 7, p. 227. 91. Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema, pp. 152, 154. 92. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 756. 93. Ganchovski, Dnite, p. 145. 94. TsPA, f. 146, op. 7, a.e. 38, l. 1–2. 95. Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema, pp. 174–84; Daskalov, Politicheski Ubiystva, pp. 244–7. 96. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 757. 97. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 11, 15, 17 June, 19 July 1947. 98. Ibid, 20 August 1947. 99. Ibid, 26 August 1947. 100. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 8 September 1947. 101. V. Stoyanov, Predsmurtnite Pisma na Nikola D. Petkov do Georgi Dimitrov i Vassil Kolarov (Sofia, 1992), pp. 12–15, 19; Ognyanov, Durzhavno-politicheskata Sistema, pp. 165–77. 102. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 618. 103. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 12–13 August 1947. 104. Avramova, Bulgaria v Sekretniya Arhiv, p. 166; T. Volokitina, G. Murashko, A. Noskova and T. Pokivaylova, Moskva i Vostochnaya Evropa: Stanovlenie Politicheskih Rezhimov Sovetskogo Tipa, 1949–53g. (Moscow, 2002), p. 44. 105. FO 371/72162, R 52, Belgrade to FO, 27 December 1947; R740, Bucharest to FO, 16 January 1948. 106. Perović, ‘The Tito-Stalin split’, pp. 32–63. 107. Ibid. 108. FO 371/72162, R 1349, translation from Pravda, Moscow to FO, 29 January 1948. 109. Ganchovski, Dnite, pp. 375–7. 110. Djilas, Conversations, p. 191. 111. Ganchovski, Dnite, pp. 443–5. 112. M. Djilas, Rise and Fall (San Diego, CA, 1985), pp. 189–90. 113. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 247. 114. S. Gechev, ‘Spomeni na edin diplomat: Georgi Dimitrov i ideyata za balkanska federatsia’, Vezni, 3 (1995), pp. 20–4. 115. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 239. 116. Vekov et al, Vassil Kolarov, Vol. 3, pp. 424–7. 117. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 657, l. 1. 118. Ibid, op. 6, a.e. 1140, l. 2–3.

258

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119. Ganchovski, Dnite, pp. 384, 398. 120. Gechev, ‘Spomeni’, pp. 20–4. 121. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 247. 122. Ibid, op. 1, a.e. 14, 1. 7; Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 6, 10 August 1948. 123. Gechev, ‘Spomeni’, pp. 20–4. 124. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 19 August 1948. 125. Volokitina et al, Moskva i Vostochnaya Evropa, pp. 56, 64, 79. 126. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 743. 127. M. Issusov, ‘Georgi Dimitrov na granitsata na dva sotsialni expetimenta’, in Kanatsieva et al, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 100–5. 128. Volokitina et al, Moskva i Vostochnaya Evropa, p. 79. 129. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 23, 29 October 1948. 130. TsPA, f. 146, op. 4, a.e. 749. 131, Ibid, op. 7, a.e. 149. 132. Ibid. 133. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 6 December 1948. 134. A. Atanasov, ‘Kak i zashto Stalin ubi Georgi Dimitrov’, Novo Vreme, 9 (2004), pp. 66–7. 135. TsPA, f. 146, op. 5, a.e. 1149. 136. Ibid, op. 1, a.e. 337, l. 1–4; op. 2, a.e. 1683. 137. Gergov, Obrugavaneto, pp. 25–7. 138. TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 351, l. 68. 139. Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 6 December 1948. 140. M. Isussov, Poslednata Godina na Traicho Kostov (Sofia, 1990), p. 75. 141. Volokitina et al, Moskva i Vostochnaya Evropa, p. 499. 142. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, p. 343. 143. Semerdjiev, Dimitrov, p. 67. 144. Issussov, Georgi Dimitrov, pp. 440–2; Petrov, Stalin i Razgromut, pp. 99–101. 145. TsPA, f. 146, op. 5, a.e. 53. 146. Ibid, op. 2, a.e. 1687, l. 9; Isussov, Poslednata Godina, pp. 51–2. 147. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 1686, l. 131. 148. Avramova, Bulgaria v Sekretniya Arhiv, p. 236. 149. Baev, ‘Istinata za edno pismo’. 150. Avramova, Bulgaria v Sekretniya Arhiv, pp. 204–14.

Conclusion 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

Sirkov et al, Dnevnik, 6 February 1949. Ignatov, Surtse za Vsichki, pp. 105–6. Gergov, Obrugavaneto, pp. 94–7. TsPA, f. 146, op. 2, a.e. 276, l. 1–3. Ibid, a.e. 1687, l. 9–12. Ibid, a.e. 278. Chankov, Ravnosmetkata, p. 267. Ibid, p. 278. Ibid, p. 281. TsPA, f. 146, op. 1, a.e. 20, pp. 11–69. Gergov, Obrugavaneto, pp. 94–7. Georgieva, ‘Dimitrov bil otroven ot Tito’. L. Tomova, ‘Kato che li beshe vchera’, Duma, 147 (2 July 2009). Djilas, Conversations, p. 33. Chankov, Ravnosmetkata, p. 268. Michev et al, Biografichen Ocherk, p. 85.

INDEX

Abramovich, Alexander 57

Balkan federation 5, 7, 25–6, 63, 69–70, 100,

Aegean region 34

174–5, 187, 196, 211, 213, 215–16, 230,

Aegean Sea 197

236–7

Agrarian parties 92, 97, 100, 120–1, 128

Balkan Länder-secretariat 81–2, 84, 91, 121

Agrarians see BZNS

Balkan Social Democrats 33

Albania 66, 187, 211–12

Balkan Socialist Federation 41, 43

Albanian Communists 191

Balkan Trade Union Federation 47

Albrecht, Alexander 63

Balkan wars 33

Alexandrov, Todor 70–1

Balkans 38, 65, 92, 154, 174, 178

Alikhanov, Gevoti 139

Baltic countries 147, 151, 157, 160

Allied Control Commission 180, 190

Baranov, Leonid 211

Alsace-Lorraine 97

Barbusse, Henri 77, 101, 105

American College 17, 23

Barker, Elisabeth 186

Amsterdam 98, 101

Barnes, Maynard 203

Amsterdam Congress 101

Basel 28, 98

Amsterdam movement 102

Bavaria 44

‘anarcho-liberals’ 19–20

Bayernhof restaurant 103

Ankara 175

Belgian Communist Party 149

Anti-war Congress 101

Belgrade 22, 25–6, 47, 159, 209, 211

Arkhangel’skoe 114

Bell, John 2

Atanassov, Nedyalko 68, 71, 77, 84–5, 221

Beria, Lavrentiy 140–2, 164, 227

Austria 62, 80, 85, 88, 99, 103, 105, 115, 118

Berlin Conference of BKP(N) 85–7, 93, 96

Austrian Communists 98, 115, 120, 161, see

Berlin Plenum of BKP(N) 89–91, 96

also KPÖ

Berlin Treaty 9 Berlin, 47, 85–6, 88–9, 95, 97–9, 102–4, 109,

Badoglio, Marshal Pietro 171

111–13, 120, 181

Baev, Jordan 4

Bernstein, Eduard 25, 33

Bagryanov, Ivan 177–8

Bessarabia 157

Balkan Communist Federation see BKF

Bierut, Bolesław 181

260

GEORGI D IMITROV

Biryuzov, General Sergey 189–92, 198, 200

British Liaison Officers 176

BKF (Balkan Communist Federation) 43, 53, 64, British Military Mission 174–5 66, 71, 76, 83–4, 88–9, 94, 187; confirmed

Broads 24–5, 31–2, 34, 36, 40, 42–3, 45, 58, 101

uprising 75; endangered 80–1; national

Browder, Earl 170

question 69

Brown Book 106–7, 109

BKP(N) (Bulgarian Communist Party (Narrows)) BRP (Bulgarian Workers’ Party) 101, 114, 121, 1–2, 41–4, 46, 62–4, 67, 69, 71, 73, 79–80, 83, 86, 88–98, 101, 103, 117, 123–5, 142,

123 BRP(K) ( Bulgarian Workers’ Party (Communist))

150, 234; and 9 June 1923 54–60;

155, 157, 174, 179, 182–4, 156, 163, 173–4,

documents on 4; effects of Sveta Nedelya

178–82, 185–6, 188, 192, 194, 230, 237; V

blast 74–7; III Plenum of CC of 97, 100;

Congress of 218–20, 237; VI Plenum of CC

and Leipzig Trial 107

of 127; relations with neighbours 196, 198;

Black Mosque 27, 104

and ‘macedonianisation’ 200, 202, 205; and

Black Sea 68, 118, 155, 180, 182, 205, 207,

Tito–Stalin split 214–15; IX Plenum of CC of

210–11 Blagoev, Dimitur 13–14, 25–6, 28–9, 31, 33–5, 38, 42, 45, 52, 56–59, 63, 123, 193, 232;

194; X Plenum of CC of 201, 209; XI Plenum of CC of 202–3 BRSDP (Bulgarian Workers’ Social Democratic

and activity in Russia 14; ‘narrow’ views 15;

Party) 11–12; split 15, 18, 21, 26, 28–35, 38–

quarrels with Broads 16

41, 52–3, 197; and Russian Social Democrats

Blagoeva, Natasha 153

15; and German Social Democrats 15; and

Blagoeva, Stella 117, 130, 139, 153

Second International 16; became

Bled 209–11

BRSDP(N)18

Blum, Léon 134, 146, 152

BRSDP(B) see Broads

Bol’shoy Theatre 153, 159

BRSDP(N) see Narrows

Bolshevik 150

Bryansk 166

Bolshevik Revolution 36, 44, 47; anniversary of

Bucharest 27

154, 157, 167, 192 Bolshevisation of BKP(N) 78–9, 86, 93–4, 99,

Buchvarov, Krum 130 Budapest 27, 221

123–4, 126, 133, 231

Budyonniy, Marshal Semyon 141

Bonnet, Georges 147, 152

Bukharin, Nikolay 117, 132, 143

Boris III, King 39, 54, 76, 111, 157, 172

Bulganin, Nikolay 204

Boroviha sanatorium 146, 154, 217–18, 228

Bulgaria 38, 51–55, 57–9, 61–9, 72–9, 81–2, 85,

Brandler, Heinrich 89

88, 90, 92–7, 100–1, 104–5, 107–8, 111,

British Air Command 175

114, 118, 120–1, 123–4, 130, 138–9, 150,

British Labour Party 101, 209

154–7, 163, 165, 169, 172–84; and

INDEX

261

Communist show trials 7; workers in 11;

Chou En-lai 151, 162, 172,

industrialisation of 16

Churchill, Winston 163, 210

Bulgarian Democratic Party 139

class against class 96–7, 100–1, 115

Bulgarian guerrillas 174

Codovilla, Vittorio 134

Bulgarian Orthodox Church 194, 199

Cold War 5, 230

Bulgarian Partisans 174, 176, 178–9

Cominformburo 210, 213, 215, 217–18, 220

Bulgarian Radical Party 139, 203

Comintern 1, 4, 6–8, 40–1, 43, 46, 48, 61–5, 67,

Bulgarian Social Democrats 138–9, 172

69, 71–3, 75–8, 80–89, 91–2, 94, 97–102,

Burgas 25, 35, 45, 51, 60

106–7, 109, 113, 115–18, 120–5, 127, 129–

BZNS (Bulgarian Agrarian National Union) 26,

43, 145–5, 157–63, 165–72, 174, 177, 185,

32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 45, 51–6, 58–63,

216, 218, 232–6; literature on 5; and 9 June

65–8, 73–5, 77, 80–1, 84–5, 87, 89, 100,

1923 coup 55, 57–8; and September

120–1, 138–9, 186–9, 194, 198, 200,

uprising 59; course towards uprising 63, 66;

203–5, 208, 221; leftists in 161, 172, 180;

and BKF 81; analysis of capitalism 101;

intimidated Communists 187

approval of counter-trial 106; and Leipzig Trial 110; Stalin’s views of 116, 119, 128; VI

Caballero, Largo 135

Congress of 96; VII Congress of 116, 118,

Cachin, Marcel 105

127–9, 149, 235; debates within 119, 121;

Campinchi, César 105

and Social Democrats 120; purges in 131, 139;

Canada 151

and PCF 134; and Spanish Civil War 134–7;

CC of BKP(N) see BKP(N)

and China 137; and Polish section 140; 20th

CCP (Chinese Communist Party) 138, 141, 151,

anniversary of 145; dissolution of 160; and

158, 164, 172

broadcasting 163, 166

Central Alliance 33–4

Communist International 150

Central Workers’ Printers’ Syndicate 11–12

Communist Party of Finland 151, 153–4

Chankov, Georgi 231

Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) 101,

Chernokolev, Titko 217

149, 158, 163

Chernomordik 130

Communist Party of Poland 171

Chernyshevsky, Nikolay 13, 37

Constantinople 81

Chervenkov, Vulko 3, 96, 114, 126, 141–2,

Copenhagen 98

166–7, 183–4, 191–2, 208, 213, 217, 225,

coup of 19 May 1934 121, 123–4

227, 229–30

coup of 9 June 1923 54, 57–8, 61, 64, 69–70, 77,

Chiang Kai-shek 137–8

79, 83

Chile 128

Crimea 154

China 88, 128, 137–8, 151, 172, 176

Cripps, Sir Stafford 106

262

GEORGI D IMITROV

Croatia 187

Socialists 33; and consolidation of FB 66; and

Czech Communists 158, 164

Evangelical Church 10; and expansion of

Czechoslovakia 111, 128, 146

ORSS 20; and February revolution 35; and German attack on USSR 162; and Kabakchiev

Daladier, Edouard 146–7, 152

86; and Kostov’s case 222; and KPD 99–102;

Dallin, Alexander 3

and KPÖ 85; and Legien Mission 30; and

Danish Communists 98

Macedonian problem 174; and Macedonians

Danube 26, 35, 46, 60, 179

72; and May Manifesto 70–1; and Moscow

Daskalov, Raiko 52

émigrés 87; and October revolution 36; and

Davies, Mostyn 176

People’s Court 185; and Pernik strikes 21–2;

de Gaulle, General Charles 163, 168, 171

and Petkov’s trial 207–8 and repatriation of

de Moro-Giafferi, Vincent 105

émigrés 228; and Russian opposition 84; and

Dechev, Stefan 105

Sobolev action 155–6; and Soviet declaration

Días, José 133–41, 147

of war on Bulgaria 181; and Soviet special

dictatorship of the proletariat 201–3, 218–19

operations 72; and split of Sofia Socialists 17;

Diels, Rudolf 112–13

and Stalin 5, 153, 201; and Stalin–Tito rift 7,

DII (Department of International Information)

213, 215; and Sveta Nedelya blast 76–8; and

170, 177, 181, 191, 200, 210–11 Dimitrov, Dr G.M. 161, 180, 184, 186–7; house arrest of 188; sentence of 200 Dimitrov, Georgi

Vienna Plenum 84–8; and Wilson’s 14 points 36; archive of 4; arrest 1906 21; arrest 1915 34; arrest 1917 35; arrest in Romania 1920 46; arrival in Soviet Union 113; assessment of role

accusations by ‘young’ 92; acquittal at

2–3; at Leipzig Trial 108–9; at National

Leipzig 110–12; adopted Marxism 13;

Assembly 205; at Sofia City Council 30, 34–6,

after dissolution of Comintern 171; against

39–40, 42, 44–6; attitude to Balkan wars 28;

Bagryanov’s government 177; agitation in

bibliography on 1; candidate-member of

Pernik 39–40; allegiance to Stalin 216; and

Bulgarian CC 96; car accident 8; career 6;

‘anarcho-liberals’ 20; and 9 June 1923

charged with Reichstag Fire 103; Chinese

55–8; and 9 September 1944 181; and

question 151; clashed with Petkov 206; death

Amsterdam Congress 99–101; and Berlin

of 228–9; death of son 168–9; detention in

Conference 86; and BKF 81; and Blagoev

Black Mosque 27; diary of 4–5; directives to

14; and Bulgarian elections 204; and

Bulgarian Communists 174; disagreements

Bulgarian Partisans 176; and Bulgarian

with CC 71–9; dissolution of Comintern 160,

refugees 72, 81, 85; and BZNS 186, 218;

169; early years 9–11; ECCI representative for

and Chinese Communists 7; and Communist

KPÖ 67; edited Kukurigoo 11; elected

planning 175–6; and conference of Balkan

Secretary of CC 23; elections 1920 44;

INDEX

263

emigrated 61; enrolment in BRSDP 14;

reorganisation of ORSS 24; repatriation of

established FB 62; evacuation from Moscow

émigrés 164; report to ECCI 1930 92–4;

166; exchanges with Stalin 181–6;

report to ITU secretariat 24; report to VII

exchanges with Yugoslav Communists 164,

Congress of Comintern 117–18, 127;

167; family 153, 165; first article 17; first

reprimanded Kostov 190; requests for release

elected positions 12; first elections 26; first

of purged 158, 164, 173, 185; resistance

international conference 25; first job 11;

movements 1; return to Bulgaria 1, 190;

first strike 12; First World War activity 35;

return to Vienna 87; II Congress of Balkan

formulated people’s democracy 186; gaps in

Socialists 27; Secretary-General of Comintern

biography 3; gratitude to Stalin 192; Head

1, 116–17; Secretary-Treasurer of ORSS 23;

of Polish–Baltic Länder-secretariat 82; Head

sentence in absentia 75, 82; set up Polish

of WEB 97–8; health 99, 113, 145–6, 172,

Workers’ Party 165; Soviet citizenship 1;

206, 217; historical controversies 3; in air

speech at VII Congress of ITU 27; suicide of

shelter 165–6; in Bulgarian Parliament 31–2;

wife 4; Sunday school 10, 13, 20; ‘Theses on

in German prison 104–5; in Moscow 1924

the War’ 148–9; trade union work 18;

66; in Narrow–Broad dispute 16; in

transferred to Moscow 76; travels 1911 26;

Samokov 17; international campaign in

trial 1918 37; unrest 1919 42–3; view of Tito

support of 105–7; involvement in Great

188; visited front 34

Terror 2, 7, 125, 129, 141–3; joined

Dimitrov, Lyuben 221

Printers’ Syndicate 12; launched September

Dimitrov, Todor 76

Uprising 1923 59–60, 63, 65; launched

Dimitrov, Vesselin 3

Transport Strike 43–4; leader of BKP(N) 2;

Dimitrova, Elena 37, 106–7, 111, 114, 153, 170

liaisons 99; loyalty to Soviets 6, 8; marriage

Dimitrova, Magdalena 37, 111–12, 114, 117, 165,

22; marriage crisis 37, 44; mausoleum of 4,

186

229; meetings with Agrarians 1924 68;

Dimitrova, Parashkeva see mother

meetings with émigrés 1925 79; Molotov–

Djilas, Milovan 131, 176, 212–13, 230

Ribbentrop Pact 147–8; myth of 2–3, 229;

Dobro Pole 38

on Balkan federation 211; on FF 186; on

Dobrudja 34

nature of 9 September 1944 217; on

Dodd, Martha 109

people’s democracy 218–21; on Soviet

Dolni Dubnik 52

Union 187, 219; parents 9–11, 17;

Dr Frick 111

publications on 3–6; rapprochement with

Dr Wille 105

‘young’ 98–9; recruited fighters 58;

Dragnev, Georgi 87, 205

remains of 4; reminiscence of 3;

Dragoicheva, Tsola 76, 228 Drama 36

264

GEORGI D IMITROV

Dreyfuss affair 152

FB (Foreign Bureau) 62, 64, 67, 69, 72–4, 76, 79,

Duclos, Jacques 102, 134, 170

86, 88–9, 93–5, 98, 123; and purges 125, 127,

Dupnitsa 26

141, 173, 233

Dutch Communists 98

Fédération Balkanique 92 Ferdinand (town of) 60

East Prussia 113, 166

Ferdinand, King 26, 29, 37–9

Eastern Europe 5, 175–7, 181, 191, 204, 209,

Feuchtwanger, Lion 131

211, 218, 220 ECCI (Executive Committee of the Communist

Finder, Paweł 165, 168 Finland 151

International) 48, 57, 61–8, 73–4, 76–7,

Firsov, Fridrikh 3

80–4, 88, 91–2, 94–8, 102–3, 107–8,

First World War 33, 231–2

115–16, 118–19, 121,123–5, 129–32,

Fischer, Ernst 141

134–42, 145–9, 153, 158–61, 163, 165–6,

Fischer, Ruth 110

169–70; and June 1923 55, 56; review of

Fleischmann, Rosa 99, 107, 118, 126, 138, 145,

Bulgarian question 65–7, 82, 94–7; XII

153, 165, 169

Plenum of 102, 111; XIII Plenum of 112,

Florin, Wilhelm 140, 152

115, 123; Presidium of 149, 158, 169–70

France 102, 111, 118, 120, 133–4, 137, 146–7,

Einstein, Albert 105

150, 152, 156–7, 161, 168, 177, 179, 235

Encho see Pavlov, Ivan

Franco, General Francisco 134–5

Entente 33, 38

Free Trade Union Federation see SORSS

Etheridge, Mark 193–4

French Parliament 133

Europe 57, 63–5, 70, 74, 91, 95, 98, 101, 105,

French Radical Party 133, 152

107, 110, 113, 115–16, 118, 120, 122, 133, 151–2, 154–5, 159, 163, 167–8, 172,

Gabrovo 23

174–5, 185, 189, 191, 196, 203–4, 209,

Ganchovski, Nedelcho 3

218, 220

Ganev, Dimitur 182–3

European Advisory Commission 175

Genchev, Ivan (Boyan, Shpiner) 84, 126–7, 181

European Peasant Congress 97

General Workers’ Trade Union see ORSS

Evxinograd 211

Geneva conference on disarmament 101 Genov, Gavril 14, 59, 72

Far East 137

Georgiev, Gavril 23

father 193

Georgiev, Kimon 139, 180, 189, 195, 198, 201–2,

Fatherland Front (FF) 172, 174, 178–9, 184–9, 191–5, 197–201, 204–6, 214–16

205 German Anti-fascist Committee 171 German Communists 115, 164, see also KPD

INDEX

265

German troops 175, 179 Germany 100, 102–7, 110, 112–13, 115, 120,

Ibárruri, Dolores 153, 158

125, 142, 147–50, 152, 154–5, 157, 161–3, Institute 305 166 173, 175, 178

International Anti-fascist Congress 97

Gestapo 112

International Anti-war Congress 101

Goebbels, Joseph 1, 109, 235

International Brigades 136–7

Goering, Herman 1, 103, 106, 109, 112–13,

International Juridical Investigation Commission

140, 235

106

Gomułka, Władisław 221

International League of Fighters for Peace 101

Gorky, Maxim 117

International Peasant Committee 102

Gottwald, Klement 181

International Trade Union (ITU) 21, 24, 27, 30

government of workers and peasants 53, 55, 57,

Irkutsk 126

61–2, 65–8, 73, 75, 79, 87, 90, 152, 167 Grand Alliance 198 Great Britain 116, 122, 145, 147–8, 150, 159– 60, 174, 190–1, 194–5, 200–1, 210

Isakov, Naim 64 Iskrov, Petur 78, 85–90, 91–4, 114, 118, 123–4, 126, 140, 142 Italian Communists see PCI

Great Terror 2, 7, 125, 129, 136–41

Italian Socialist Party 48

Greece 66, 69, 161, 187, 196, 199, 203,

Italian–Turkish War 28

210–12 Greek guerrillas 171 Groza, Petru 209 Guillot, Raymond 152

Italy 148, 154, 176 Ivanov, Anton 24, 59, 81, 114, 124, 126, 130, 157, 232 Ivanov, Tsveti 200 Ivosević, Ljubica 22, 28, 31, 36–7, 39–40, 44, 46–

Hadjidimov, Dimo 70 Halle Congress 48

8, 56, 63, 99, 108, 114, 231 Izvestiya 145

Harlakov, Nikola 19, 83 Hediger, Rudolf 98

Japan 148, 154

Hitler, Adolf 1, 102–3, 105–7, 109, 111–13,

Jovanović, Kiti 114

115, 120, 133, 150, 163, 169, 235 Houstoun-Boswall, William 203 Hristo Botev radio station 174, 178

Kabakchiev, Hristo 26, 48, 56–9, 63, 86, 93–4, 141–2

Humbert-Droz, Jules 89, 143

Kaganovich, Lazar 135–6

Hungarian Communists 164

Kalinin, Mikhail 145, 170

Hungarian revolution 1918 42

Kalinovka 173

Hungary 44, 154

Kamenev, Lev 84, 130

266

GEORGI D IMITROV

Kardelj, Edvard 218

102–4, 109–10, 150; see also German

Katz, Otto 106

Communists

Kautsky, Karl 15, 33

KPÖ (Austrian Communist Party) 89, 115–16

Kazasov, Dimo 51, 205

Kremlin 98, 114, 131, 135, 149, 151, 160, 162,

Kinov, Ivan 183, 223

171, 179, 191, 195–6, 200, 210, 227–8, 234,

Kirkov, Georgi 14, 18, 20, 28, 193

236

Kirov, Sergey 122, 124, 126, 130

Kresna–Razlog Uprising 9

Kirovskaya metro station 165

Krestintern 67, 97, 99

Kirsanov, Stepan 190, 198, 208

Krueger, Ani 99, 103–4, 107, 109, 114

Kislovodsk 89, 98, 107

Krupskaya, Nadezhda 114

KKE (Greek Communist Party) 158, 196, 214

Krushchev, Nikita 166

Knorin, Wilhelm 89, 114, 119, 121, 136, 140

Kuibishev 165–7

Knyazhevo 192

Kun, Béla 86, 96, 114, 121, 128–30, 140

Kofardjiev, Nikola 85, 87, 91–3, 126

Kunev, Trifon 200

Kolarov, Vassil 19, 26, 28, 32, 38, 42, 44–6,

Kuntsevo 146

53–65, 67–8, 70, 73, 75, 77–8, 80–1, 83, 85–6, 89, 90–2, 94–9, 107, 111, 121,

Kuusinen, Otto 82, 119, 130, 132, 140, 145, 153, 200, 218

123–4, 126–7, 129–30, 132, 140, 153, 173, 181–2, 191, 200, 205, 208, 214–15,

Lake Razelm 46

223–4; view of Dimitrov 214

Lambrev, Georgi (Rossen) 78, 85, 91, 93, 96, 103,

Kolev, Valeri 3

126

Kolima 226

Latin America 170

Komunstichesko Zname 84, 90

Lavrishchev, Alexander 165

Komsomol see Youth League

League of Nations 36, 52

Königsberg 113

‘left sectarians’ 3, 92–6, 100, 124, 126, 142, 224

Konyovitsa 42

leftist deviation 79, 94

Kornilov putsch 55–6

Legien Karl 30–1

Kostov, Traicho 99, 127, 156, 183–4, 186,

Leipzig 104–5, 107, 110, 112, 114–15, 117, 122–

189, 191–2, 195–6, 228, 230, 236; and

3, 125, 140, 174, 199, 212, 234–5

People’s Court 185; reprimanded by

Leipzig Trial 108, 113–14, 117, 120, 124, 224

Dimitrov 190; purged 200, 208, 218,

Lenin, Vladimir 16, 25, 33, 36, 38–41, 48, 59, 66,

222–5 Kovachevtsi 9

114, 117, 126, 132, 136, 141, 146, 159–60, 187, 214, 216, 218, 228

Kozovski, Ferdinand 141, 232

Leningrad 122

KPD (German Communist Party) 97, 100,

Lenski, Julian 140

INDEX Linderot, Sven 170 Lipski, Lukas 171

267

Marek, Stefan Dimitrov 67, 74–9, 82–4, 96, 126– 7, 167, 173, 232

‘liquidationists’ 63, 73, 79, 87

Markov, Georgi 204

Litvinov, Maxim 158, 175

Marley, Lord 105–6

Livorno 48

Marshall Plan 212

Ljuba see Ivosević, Ljubica

Marty, André 132, 134, 147, 152, 158, 168

Lom 60

Marx, Karl 146

London 163, 170, 175, 191, 204

May Manifesto 70–1

London counter-trial 106

Mediterranean 197, 211

Lozovsky, Solomon 119

Merkulov, Vsevolod 141–2, 169, 191

Luftwaffe 165

Meshcherino 146

Lukanov, Todor 46, 54, 57, 59, 64, 77, 79, 94,

Mexico 176

127, 142; views on September Uprising 80,

Mezdra 204

83–4, 86–7, 89

Middle East 168

Lulchev, Kosta 195–6, 200

Mienner, Klara 99

Lux Hotel 111, 113

Mihailov, Georgi 62

Luxemburg, Rosa 25

Mihajlović, Draža 167

Lyapchev, Andrey 100

Mihalchev, Dimitur 184 Military League 54

Macedonia 28, 34–6, 66, 171, 174–5, 196, 201, 209, 211, 236

Milyutin, 69 Miners’ Union 20

Macedonian federalists 69–70

mining in Bulgaria 20

Macedonian question 4, 9

Mirov, Yakov 192

Mack, John 198

Moabit Prison 104

Maisky, Ivan 175

Molojec, Bolesław 168

Malenkov, Georgiy 142, 170

Molotov, Vyacheslav 116, 135–6, 141–2, 147–50,

Malinov, Alexandur 87

154–9, 162–4, 169–70, 175–6, 179, 182,

Manchurian crisis 101

190–1, 193, 198, 201, 204, 222

Mansfeldt, Sofie 103–4

Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 1, 147, 150

Manuilsky, Dmitry 84, 116–17, 119, 121, 128,

MOPR (International Organisation for Aid of

132, 136–7, 139–40, 145–7, 154, 157, 159, 162, 169, 172, 176 Mao Tse-dong 138, 158, 170, 172 Mar’ino 98

Revolutionaries) 72, 82, 84, 102 Morava 36 Moscow 2, 4, 6–8, 41, 47–8, 56–7, 61–4, 66, 68, 71–2, 75–80, 82–3, 85–9, 91, 94–9, 101–2, 107–8, 110–11, 113–15, 120–2, 125–7,

268

GEORGI D IMITROV

130–1, 133–5, 138, 140–1, 146–7, 151–5,

New Zealand 151

157, 159, 165–7, 170, 172, 174–8, 180–4,

NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal

186–7, 189, 191–205, 207, 213, 217, 222,

Affairs) 126, 129–30, 139, 141–2, 164–5,

225, 227–8, 230–1, 233–6; centre of

168, 178–9, 181, 192, 223, 235

Bulgarian emigration 95 Moscow Conference of BKP(N) 77–8, 80

Northern Bukovina 157 Nowotko, Marceli 165, 168

Moscow decision 194, 236 Moskvin, Mikhail 131–2, 142

Obbov, Alexandur 67–8, 221

mother 22–3, 99, 104, 107, 111–12, 114, 117,

Odessa 79

169, 176

‘old’ 86, 90–1, 95–6

Münzenberg, Willi 101–3, 105–7, 141

‘Open Letter’ 61–2

Munich 103

Opposition (in Bulgaria) 191–5, 200–9, 216, 221,

Munich agreement 146–8

236; and Moscow decision 195; and Vyshinsky

Muraviev, Konstantin 178–9

196–9

Mushanov, Nikola 111

Orange Guard 52

Mussolini, Benito 168

Ordjonikidze, Sergo 132, 135

Mutafov, Simeon 23

ORSS (General Workers’ Trade Union) 18, 20–1, 23–5, 27–8, 30–1, 40–1, 45, 58–9

Naroden Sgovor 54

Ottoman empire 26

Narrows 15–21, 23–6, 28–36, 38–42, 52–3, 55, 93, 96, 98, 123–4, 231–2; and Second

Panfilov, General 164

International 19; and Amsterdam

Panitsa, Todor 70–1

Congress 19

parents 23

National Assembly 15, 26, 29–30, 32, 34, 39–40, 45, 51, 53, 55, 109, 185, 193, 195, 203, 206, 214–15

Paris 97, 102, 105, 107, 115, 140, 152, 200–1, 204 Paris Peace Treaty 230

National Bloc 121

Party of Labour 65

national front 159, 161–3, 165, 167–8, 177,

Pastuhov, Krustyu 29, 32, 42, 197, 200

181, 184, 186; adopted by Comintern 161

Pauker, Ana 6, 181

National Liberal Party 37

Pavlov, Ivan (Encho) 103, 125, 127, 130

National Theatre 192, 194

Pavlov, Todor 183, 193, 214

Nationalist Party in China 138, 151, 158

PCE (Communist Party of Spain) 134, 137, 147,

Naumov, Georgi 3 Nazis 99–103, 106–7, 109–15, 118, 120, 129 Neuilly Peace Treaty 42, 54

158 PCF (French Communist Party) 120, 133–4, 146– 9, 152, 158, 161, 163, 168, 171

INDEX

269

PCI (Communist Party of Italy) 152, 168, 171

Popov, Nikola 221

People’s Court 185, 221, 236

Poppetrov, Nikolay 3

people’s democracy 1, 186–7, 192, 218–19,

popular front 3, 120, 122, 128–9, 133–8, 146,

230, 237; Dimitrov’s theses on 219–20

149–50, 157, 161, 182, 230, 234–5

People’s Party of Iran 171

Popular Front (in France) 146, 149, 152

Pernik 20, 26, 39–41, 204; mines in 197

Popular Front (in Spain) 134–5

Persia 47

Potsdamer Strasse 103

Petrov, Ivan 125–6

POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist

Petkov, Nikola 186–9, 193, 195, 197, 206–7,

Unification) 134, 136

221; called for postponement of elections

PPR (Polish Workers’ Party) 165

190; refused to follow Moscow decision

Prague 221

195–6; clashed with Dimitrov 206; trial of

Pravda 48, 102, 121, 145–6, 173, 180, 212

208; execution of 209

Pritt, D.N. 106

Piatnitsky, Ossip 86, 96, 102, 112, 114, 116, 119, 122

Prochniak, Edward 140 Profintern 48, 56, 63, 66, 68, 129

Pieck, Wilhelm 110, 112, 141, 152, 170

Protoguerov, Alexandur 70

Pirin region 9, 201, 209, 214, 216

Prussia 100

Plakalnitsa 24

PSF (French Socialist Party) 120, 133, 152

Plekhanov, Georgy 13, 16, 33

PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) 134, 137

Pleven 26, 45, 54 Plovdiv 23, 176

Queen Mother (of Bulgaria) 199

Poland 146–8, 150, 164–5, 171, 210–11, 214–15 Polish Communists 98, 139–40, 164, 167–8, 171, 191

Rabotnicheski Vestnik 17, 27–8, 31, 34, 53, 58, 63–4 Rabotnichesko Delo 183, 205, 214

Polish resistance 173

Radek, Karl 55–6, 126, 131

Politburo of BRP(K) 181, 183–5, 188–9,

Radical Party (in Bulgaria) 58, 121

192–3, 195, 199–200, 204, 208, 214, 219,

Radio Sofia 180

223–5, 227–8, 231

Radomir 9, 38

Politburo of VKP(B) 120, 128, 130, 132–5, 143, 158, 165, 170

Radoslavov, Vassil 29 Rakhmetov 13, 37

Pollitt, Harry 128, 170

Rákosi, Máttyás 158–9, 170, 181, 191

Popov, Blagoy 103–4, 112; purge of 125, 129,

Rakovski, Krustyu 14, 25, 33, 41, 86

140, 199 Popov, Georgi 77, 79, 86

Ramette, Arthur 152 Ranković, Alexandar 200

270

GEORGI D IMITROV

Red Army 153, 160, 163, 166, 171, 178–80, 182–3, 185, 191, 220 Reichstag Fire 1, 3, 103–6, 108, 110, 112–13, 234

Serbia 52, 69, 73 Serbian Communists 46–7, 164 Serrail, General Maurice 37 Sevastopol 118

rightist deviation 79, 89, 94

Shaafsma, Jan 99

Rolland, Romain 101

Shcherbakov, Alexander 171

Romania 66, 154, 161, 178, 181, 187, 193, 209, Simeon II, King 199 211

Slovenia 187

Romanian Communists 181, 191

Sobolev, Arkady 155–6, 235

Romanian Foreign Bureau 171

Sochi 154, 205

Rössler, Irmgard 103

Social Democrats 13, 21–2, 92–3, 115–16, 118–

Rothschild, Joseph 2

19, 128, 130, 137–8, 147, 150, 157, 159,

Ruhr crisis 57

161, 172, 180; in Bulgaria 100–1, 180, 193,

Russe 26, 35, 60

200, 206, 231, 235; in Germany 100

Russia 14, 32–3, 35–6, 39, 46–8, 51–2, 68, 72, 74, 78, 82

Socialist International 120, 127, 137 Sofia 9, 23, 25–6, 30, 38–40, 42, 47, 54–6, 59–60,

Russian Patriarch 199

63–4, 66–7, 71, 74–6, 78, 80–3, 97, 101,

Rykov, Alexey 132

104, 107, 109, 126, 155, 161, 165, 175– 6, 178–82, 185, 189–91, 196, 204–5, 209, 222,

Sakarov, Nikola 63, 73

227–9

Sakuzov, Yanko 15

Sofia Brigade 176

Salonika 37, 203

Sofia City Council 30, 34–6, 39–40, 42, 44–6, 109

Samokov 51, 176

Sofia District Council 40

Samokov College see American College

Soldiers’ Uprising 39–40, 57, 96

San Stefano agreement 9

son Boyko 206, 229

Scandinavia 170

son Mitya 153, 165, 168–9

Schutzbund 115

SORSS (Free Trade Union Federation) 18, 21, 24,

Second International 23, 25–6, 33, 96,

27, 30

Copenhagen Congress of 25; Basel Congress

South–Slav federation see Balkan federation

of 28

Soviet High Command in Bulgaria 178

Second World War 142, 235

Soviet Union 1, 6, 8, 39, 85, 88, 95, 97, 110–13,

Semerdjiev, Petur 3, 110

117, 122–4, 126, 131, 133, 135, 137, 139,

September Uprising 1923 1–2, 60–1, 63, 65, 67,

142, 146–7, 150–1, 153, 155–7, 159, 162–6,

69, 72–3, 75, 79, 80, 90, 108, 111, 114,

168, 170–2, 177, 181–2, 184, 187, 189, 190–

120, 203, 215, 232

INDEX

271

1, 195, 201–3, 205–6, 208, 210, 213–17,

Stamenov, Ivan 155

219–20, 222, 224–5, 228, 230, 234–5

Stara Zagora 57, 59

Spain 131, 134, 137

Stefanov, Ivan 223

Spanish Republic 235

Stockholm conference 35

SPD (German Socialist Party) 33, 48

Stoyanov, Hristo 68, 77, 84–5, 221

SPÖ (Austrian Socialist Party) 115–16

Suslov, Mikhail 220

Sports International 102

Sveta Nedelya blast 2, 76–7, 79, 82–3, 88, 114

St Ivan of Rila 199

Svishtov 26

Stainov, Petko 182, 189–90, 195, 198

Swedish Communists 97

Stalin, 1, 5–6, 55, 80, 110, 112, 114–20, 122,

Swiss Communists 98

125–8, 131–43, 145–55, 157–60, 162–7,

Szklarska Poręba 210, 217, 221

169–82, 195–6, 198, 227–8, 230–1, 234–7; and pact with Germany 148; and

Tanev, Vassil 103, 111–2; purge of 125, 129, 140

dissolution of Comintern 159; suggested

Teichert, Dr Paul 105

Polish Workers’ Party 165; advised

Terpeshev, Dobri 183, 217, 225, 228

formation of Labour Party 202–3; and

Thalheimer, August 89

Dimitrov’s death 229; criticised Bled

Thälmann, Ernst 100, 102, 117

agreement 210; and Balkan federation

The Observer 108

187–8, 212; on FF 185–91; on victory of

Third Ukrainian Front 179

Socialism 186; on Dimitrov’s return to

Thompson, Frank 176

Bulgaria 190; and postponement of

Thorez, Maurice 118, 133–4, 137, 152–3, 160,

Bulgarian elections 190; boosting Bulgarian Communists 191; Dimitrov’s gratitude to

168, 170, 176 Tito, Josip Broz 3, 6–7, 141, 167, 170–1, 174,

192; and concessions to Bulgarian

176, 178, 182, 187–8, 196, 200–1, 209–10,

Opposition 195, 202; reorientation on

213, 215, 218, 229, 236

Bulgarian issues 198; on Bulgarian–Yugoslav Todorov, Kosta 37, 44, 62–3, 67–8, 107 links 201; proposed Labour Party in Bulgaria 202; promised help to Bulgaria

Togliatti, Palmiro 132–3, 136–7, 140–1, 147, 153, 160, 162, 166, 168, 176

210; reaction to Dimitrov’s interview 212;

Tolbukhin, Marshal Fyodor 179

exchanges with Tito 213; and Dimitrov

Topencharov, Vladimir 214

214–16, 218, 220; and Kostov 222–5

Torgler Ernst 104, 110, 125

Stamboliyski, Alexandur 32, 37–9, 42–5, 51–5, 57, 60, 67–8, 77, 80, 232 Stamboliyski, Assen 200 Stambolov, Stefan 11

Transport Strike 43–5, 51, 55, 57, 232 Tripartite Pact 154–7, 159, 171 Trotsky, Lev 25, 214

272

GEORGI D IMITROV

Trotskyites/ Trotskyism 124, 130–2, 136, 140–1, VKP(B) (All-Russian Communist Party 145, 158, 235

(Bolsheviks)) 66, 84, 87, 94, 108, 112, 116,

Truman, President Harry 193

119, 122, 125–6, 128–9, 132, 139, 141,

Tsankov, Alexandur 54–6, 58–9, 61, 67, 70–2,

145, 148, 153, 155, 171–2, 192, 212, 215,

76–8, 87

224; XVII Congress of 112; XVIII Conference

Tsar Krum secret organisation 200

of 158; CC of 147–8, 153, 160, 170, 172;

Tucović, Dimitrije 25

Propaganda Department of CC of 160

Tuominen, Arvo 151

Vlasov, General Andrey 171

Turkey 72, 154–5, 203, 210

VMRO (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation) 53, 69–71, 200; and May Manifesto

Ufa 166

69–70

Ukraine 130, 173

von Neurath, Konstantin 113

Ulbricht, Walter 150

von Ribbentrop, Joachim 147

united front 53, 55–6, 67, 77, 84, 87, 89, 97,

Voroshilov, Kliment 117, 135, 154

101–2, 118–21, 123, 127, 138, 150,

Vrana 206

156–8, 172

Vratsa 29, 45

US Communist Party 159, 163

Vukovar 47

USA 122, 176, 190, 194–5, 201

Vurshets 60

USSR see Soviet Union

Vyshinsky, Andrey 142, 177, 196–9

Valter, Elena 142 van der Lubbe, Marinus 103–4, 106–10

Wallecki, Henryk 140

Varna 26, 32, 39, 46, 51, 54–6, 180, 204

Wang Ming 138, 154, 172

Vassilev, Iliya (Boyko) 85, 125, 140

Wang Fang 154

Velchev, Damian 189, 200

Warsaw 216

Veliko Turnovo 35

WEB (West European Bureau of the Comintern)

Versailles Treaty 100, 147

89, 94, 97, 99, 101, 103

Vidin 26, 35, 57, 63

Weimar Republic 99

Vienna 22, 30, 47–8, 62–4, 66–9, 72, 76–8,

Wells, H.G. 105

80–1, 83–5, 88–9, 98–9, 102–3, 115–16,

Western Allies 175–8, 180, 189–90, 195

118, 221

Wilhelm II, Kaiser 35

Vienna Bureau see Foreign Bureau

Wilson, Woodrow 36

Vienna Plenum of BKP(N) 83–4

winter war 151

Vienna student group 64–5

Workers’ Printers’ Society 12, 18

Vinarov, Ivan 179

Workers’ Tailors’ Syndicate 22

Vitosha Conference of BKP(N) 73, 76, 85

INDEX

273

World Committee for Struggle against Imperialist Zetkin, Clara 89 War 102 World Committee for the Victims of German Fascism 105 Wrangel, General Pyotr 52

Zhdanov, Andrey 148–9, 159–60, 204–5, 212 Zhekov, General 69, 74, 75 Zhemchuzhina, Polina 158 Zhukov, Marshal Georgy 210 Zimmerwald Conference 33, 85, 96

Xanthi 34

Zinoviev, Grigory 48, 56, 59, 80, 84, 130 Zinovievites 124

Yezhov, Nikolay 129, 131–2, 139–40 ‘young’ 86, 88–99, 103, 114, 124, 129, 132

Zveno 118, 121, 139, 172, 179, 180, 182, 184, 189, 191, 193–4, 200, 202–3

Youth International 129

Zweig, Stefan 101

Youth League 85, 88, 93

Zyapkov, Pastor Vassil 107, 176

Yugoslav Assembly 174 Yugoslav Communists 66, 72, 164, 167, 171, 173, 196, 213, 215 Yugoslav Partisans 164, 167, 174, 176, Yugoslavia 60–2, 64, 66, 68–9, 72, 80, 85, 159, 161, 164, 167, 175–6, 187–8, 200, 203, 209–11, 213, 215–16, 218 Yugov, Anton 192, 195, 222–3